PART 2 — THE SHADOWS RIDE TONIGHT
July 27, 2005
Curleyworld
8:45 PM
1
“Guys, Dogboy has something we—” Cindy said as she stopped in the dressing room doorway.
Mirrors lined the walls. Formica countertops hung underneath, with ample room for the performers to lay out their makeup and supplies. No performers had been there for years. This was Curleyworld, behind the main stage. The amusement park closed down years ago. There weren’t any shows planned. There were a few kids close to Cindy’s age standing around in matching white leotards.
“The Colta City Shadows I presume? I thought I’d have some input on the costumes at least. You guys look like scuba instructors.”
“Colta City Scuba Instructors?” Nuncio said, putting his arm around Cindy as he guided her to a chair. “We could roll with that.”
“Like, you run around Dogboy,” Jennifer said. “Maybe you should, like, worry about changing his name first. We like Axle’s name.”
“I think you mean Coaxle,” Axle said. A silver bolt was sprayed into his dark curly hair. He shot some sparks from his finger tips, slid on some cheap sunglasses, then crossed his arms.
“Material Girl,” Jennifer said, slipping her stonewashed jacket on as she slid next to her teammate.
“Digital Boy,” Nuncio said. He stood back-to-back with her.
“Jesse,” Jesse said. Cindy hadn’t noticed him in the room until he spoke. He stumbled up with the others. “We still need to think up a name for me.”
“Shadows, unite!” Coaxle said. They stood in tableau, the consummate superpowered teenage team.
“Thank God I don’t have to go out like that,” Cindy said. She took a printout from her purse and laid it on the counter. “Jenn… Material Girl found a press conference the day after tomorrow where we can grab him with a ton of cameras watching.”
“You guys talking about kidnapping Mayor Lane again? Like you losers are ever gonna do it,” Bugs asked as he came through the door carrying a six-pack of Dr. Pepper.
“Who invited him?” Cindy asked.
“I did, didn’t I, Bugsy?” Jennifer said. She ran up and gave him a peck on the cheek. Cindy did her best not to hurl. She didn’t like Bugs knowing about their secret club or their mission. The fact he was dating one of her friends made it even weirder. Until a month ago, he was just the school bully.
“Material Girl, can you tell your boyfriend to keep his stupid freckled face out of it?” Cindy said.
“You can talk to me yourself. I’m not some monster,” Bugs said, snapping a can off the six-pack then passing the extras to Nuncio. “Why don’t you guys get Dogboy down here? Cash in that reward before you take down the mayor. McNeil knows who he is under the mask, right?”
“Like, didn’t he save you or whatever?” Material Girl asked.
“I figured he’d like to kick in with some funds is all. Once you deal with the mayor, he can break out again.
“What are we gonna do with him once we have him?” Jesse asked.
Cindy paced in front of the mirror as she spoke. “Men like Mayor Lane never pay for what they do. They get some bad press. Maybe they spend time in a rich-guy prison upstate, but they never pay. They go away until people forget about them then come back when nobody’s looking. If I take his memories, he won’t be able to come back. He won’t even know who he is anymore.”
“Problem is people know him, right? Like they’d know him to see him,” Coaxle said. He held up his hand. A blue electrical orb oozed from his fingertips, the sparks pulsing with his breath.
Cindy licked her lips and leaned in, whispering to the group. “The only way we make sure he never experiments on another kid is to make him disappear forever. I’ll make him forget, and Axle will fry his face enough that nobody’ll recognize him. He’ll be like any other bum on the street.”
“You guys are sick,” Bugs said, pouring the last few drops of Dr. Pepper down his throat.
“You haven’t seen what they do to people like us down there,” Jennifer said. “It’s, like, criminal.”
“Don’t you think you should find out why he’s doing it first?” he asked. “Maybe he’s got a good reason.”
Cindy pushed Bugs up against the wall. “He turned us into freaking science experiments. We have to stop him now before he hurts anybody else.”
“You guys do whatever you want,” Bugs said. “I’ll be safe watching them chase you guys on TV.”
“They’d better have helicopters if they want to chase us, dude,” Digital Boy said. He opened the dressing room door. “Come see. Darse prisa.” He led them down the hallway, out from the bunker, then across the walkway to a fenced-off area underneath the Calliope Crusher. When he swung the gate open, they saw a white ship, the size of a compact car. No roof, and the insides had been gutted. A computer control panel and steering wheel sat inside.
“You’re gonna push this roller coaster car all the way to Colta City?” Bugs asked, sneering at them.
“Push is the wrong word, cabron. Here. I’ll show you.” Digital Boy crawled inside the ship then fiddled with the computer display. The hovercraft rose up off the ground far enough to see the two turbines spinning in the undercarriage to push it up off the ground.
“You have a freaking hovercraft?” Cindy said. She hopped up and down from person to person sharing the news. “A hovercraft. You see that? A real, working hovercraft. Nuncio, that’s amazing. Did you use your power to make this?”
“My cousin helped out,” he said. “She found me the plans on some hacker website.”
“It’s not a hacker website,” Material Girl said, rolling her eyes. “I downloaded a 3D model from Goodson University’s website. Two graduate students did a paper on it.”
“It’s amazing, but we can’t use it. They’ll see us coming before we get within a mile of the mayor,” Cindy said, pulling a crisp Colta City Herald from her bag.
CITY HALL WILL WATCH US ALL
MAYOR LANE REVEALS PROJECT DOLAN
“They’ll see you flying in on these cameras and nab you when you land.”
“Coaxle says he’ll let me get us in and out,” Jesse said. He held up a Colta City map. “Picked this up at a newsstand for $3. With this I can teleport us anywhere in the city.”
“I figured why not let the squib help out?” Coaxle said.
“Okay, that’s pretty smart,” Cindy said. “But what if I told you I had a way to check out the whole area before he even zaps you in?” She snatched the map from Jesse’s hand then spread it out on the ground. “Here,” she said, pointing to 525 S. 4th Street. “Dogboy has this bug. Like a beetle. With a shell. You put on these sunglasses, then you fly it around. It’s like you are the bug. You can see, hear, and feel everything. Now he has it in this magic shop. It’s in a silver briefcase. Jesse, think you can grab it for me then come back right back?”
Jesse’s jaw shook. He looked from Material Girl to Coaxle to Digital Boy. “I… I don’t think I can break into Dogboy’s lair.”
“No. This isn’t Dogboy’s lair,” Cindy said. She smiled then knelt down to look Jesse in the eye. “It’s a stupid little shop. Nobody’s even there anymore I bet. Take your map and you’ll be fine. If Dogboy catches you, just tell him you know me. Deep breath. Now what are we looking for?”
“A silver case?” he asked.
“Exactly. See? You’ve got this, kid. I believe in you.”
Jesse clenched his fists then hunched down over the map. He placed his index finger over Cindy’s. She slid hers out from under. A microscopic cyclone started spinning beneath his finger as it grazed the paper. He grabbed the map by its upper-left corner as the cyclone grew wider, bending him like a streamer. His twisted two-dimensional body got sucked into the ground. The map followed him in as the cyclone spun out.
“What now?” Coaxle asked.
“We wait,” Cindy said.
So they did. After five minutes, Digital Boy started pacing. Material Girl chewed on her knuckle. Cindy poked through some gears she’d found stacked over by the fence.
Coaxle kicked the ground where Jesse had disappeared. “Where’s he at, huh? What’s this magic shop called? I’m thinking we need to mount a rescue.
“I’ll go myself,” Cindy said. “It’s bad enough I sent the twerp there. Dogboy would kill me if you guys showed up.”
Material Girl grabbed Cindy’s arm. “Has he ever hurt you? Are you scared? You can tell us.”
Cindy laughed and pulled her arm away. “Please. I’d kick his butt. Don’t worry. I only meant he wouldn’t like it.”
“Screw that. I’ll go myself,” Coaxle said, flipping the on switch on the console. The hovercraft hummed as it lifted ten feet in the air.
Cindy covered her eyes to protect them from the wood chips and pebbles blowing from the engines. “You want Dogboy to help us, right? I wouldn’t start the conversation by busting in his front door to rescue your spy.”
Coaxle considered this for a moment. He bit his lip hard and shook his head. “White girl, you’d better know what you’re doing.” He brought the craft down then switched it off. “If something happens… If he gets caught… That’s one-hundred-fifty-percent on you. You hear?”
Cindy nodded, spit in her hand, then offered it to him. He did the same, and they shook on it. “Don’t worry,” she said, with more bravado than she felt. “If he’s with Dogboy, nothing bad is gonna happen to him. Period.”
2
Cindy ran a thousand different scenarios through her head as she turned the corner onto S. 4th Street. Maybe Bronson had taken a shine to Jesse. The teenage terrier had a soft spot for little kids after all. She wondered what might’ve happened if he’d teleported into the shop and somebody was already standing in the same spot where he popped through. Was he in the hospital? What if the map had had a weird crease and Jesse ended up in India?
One thing she didn’t consider was the police, which made the cop cars parked outside The Old Curiosity Shop even more surprising to her. Cindy squinted as she peered in the window, past the yellow caution tape and into the shop.
What a flipping a mess.
Boxes were overturned, the contents stacked into piles along the outer walls. The displays had been ransacked. Hundreds of blister-packed gimmicks covered the floor. The Okito the Mystic poster (a favorite of Cindy’s whenever she visited the shop) hung torn on the wall. The other half lay crumbled up on the floor.
“This is an active crime scene,” said a female officer as she tapped Cindy’s shoulder. The officer’s hair was short. Almost shaved. She had a “wine stain” scar on her right cheek that Cindy found impossible to not stare at. “I’m going to have to ask you— Wait. Your name’s McNeil, isn’t it?”
Cindy scowled at the officer, who seemed semifamiliar. “I don’t have to tell you anything. This isn’t a ‘stop and identify’ state, lady. I know my rights.”
The officer put her hand on the nightstick holstered on her belt. An oblique threat. “We’re dealing with a situation that threatens the mayor’s Project DOLAN initiative. We’ve been instructed to identify suspicious individuals and take them into custody if needed.”
“Talk to my lawyer. His name’s Applebottom, and you can find him at the bottom of the river,” Cindy said.
“Wait. McNeil, right? That’s it. You’re the kid who went missing a couple months back. First you run away. Now attempting a B&E? Your mom won’t be happy about this.” She pulled out her phone. “Let’s see. A couple months back? I should still have that number in here somewhere.”
Cindy squinted through the sunlight shining in her eyes to read the name off her badge. “Officer Link, you’ve got it all wrong. I wasn’t trying to break in. I’m just looking for my friend. About my height? Brown hair?”
“Look, my supervisor is on my ass enough as it is after that mess in the park a few weeks back. You can wait for your friend down the street if you want, but you can’t stay here.”
“Fair enough I guess. Can you at least let me know if you see him?”
“No promises, but I’ll keep an eye out,” Officer Link said.
Cindy nodded then crossed the street and parked herself on the curb. When a mother moved her baby carriage off to the left, she spotted Mr. Horum, who was relaxing in a lawn chair watching his shop. He waved himself with a paper fan while sipping from his lemonade bottle. As she stood to go talk to him, she saw Bronson approaching.
Thank goodness, she thought. She’d felt uneasy around the old man since she’d had to erase his memories of his adventure with the Colta City Shadows.
“Hey,” Bronson said as he sidled up to her.
“Just the geek I was looking for,” she said. She pulled the snapshot of Jesse from her pocket and showed it to him. “I’m looking for my buddy. A little blond kid.” She pointed to the shop. “What the heck is going on in there? Do they know you’re… him?”
Bronson chuckled, waving away the thought with a flip of his hand. “No, no. Nothing like that. Your friend got taken by the police last night. Cops took him away after they busted into the shop. I guess they used Project DOLAN to track some camera buzzing City Hall last night.”
Bronson didn’t stop talking, but Cindy stopped listening. She remembered the wreckage in the shop, heat rising in her cheeks. If she ended up being responsible, she would just die. She sat down, shoving her face in her hands. “Crap. I’m sorry I was only having—” She decided to focus on the bright side, hoping to side-step any blame or anger coming her way. “Well, at least Mayor Lane doesn’t know about you.”
“Yet,” Bronson said, sitting down beside her. “I know you didn’t mean to cause all this, but I’m worried about you. This obsession with the mayor is making you do really stupid things. How are we going to stop him if you get us thrown in jail?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she mumbled. She recalled the day Mayor Lane had confronted her at school. He’d said if she kept his weird experiments under City Hall a secret she (and her mom) would be safe. “He knows who I am already.”
“What?” he asked.
“Never mind.” She wanted to tell him the things she needed to do, the things the mayor had done, and the response the Shadows were planning. She couldn’t bring herself to be honest with Bronson, no matter how much she trusted him. She told herself it was to protect him, but if she was being completely honest, it was more about protecting herself from his reaction.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve put my secret in danger. These mysterious friends of yours? Spying on the mayor? Sneaking out to Curleyworld?”
“Hold it right there, Black,” she said, grabbing his shirt. “How did you know I was out at Curleyworld, huh? You following me or something?”
Bronson huffed, rubbing his hands together. “Fine. Okay. Yes. I used the scarab. I didn’t want to but you were acting so… weird or whatever. It’s not only me. Mr. Horum sees it too.”
Cindy decided she’d pretend Bronson didn’t exist. That would make him feel horrible, she was sure. She stood up, knocked the dirt off her pants, focused her eyes down the road, and walked.
Bronson jumped up and followed her. “You gotta talk to me about it,” he said. “I’ve trusted you with so much stuff. You’re my girlfriend. I deserve—”
Cindy stopped and took a deep breath. She wanted to deck him but figured that would send the wrong message. Bronson yelped as she poked him in the chest. “You don’t spy on your girlfriend. You’re lucky I don’t lay you out flat in the street before I go. Never… I mean never… do that again.
“You don’t have to worry. I’m one of the good guys.” Bronson reached out for her hand.
“Not with that move you aren’t,” she said, withdrawing hers and holding it behind her back. She noticed a sad look in his eyes and decided to turn it to her advantage “I can’t trust you with the bug,” she said. “Maybe you’d better give it to me, and we’ll call that step one.”
“I can’t,” Bronson said. He pulled the scarab from his pocket. “I grabbed this from where I hid it last night, but the sunglasses are still in the shop.” He wouldn’t look her in the eyes, which annoyed her as much as anything. “I would if I could. Please. Let’s talk about it. If there’s a step one, that means there’s a step two, which means we just need find another way up. Come on, Cindy. I’ll never be able to save the shop without your help.”
“Maybe the mayor’s right. Maybe you don’t deserve all these powers and gadgets.”
Bronson reached for her hand again, but she wasn’t having any of that. The longer she stood there, the more likely she’d either kill him or cry. Each choice was as lousy as the other one. Time to leave him to think about it, but first a distraction “Hey, pigs,” she said, waving to the policemen milling around outside the shop, “Here’s that Dogboy kid you’ve been looking for.”
“Are you freaking crazy?” Bronson said.
“Get those sunglasses, then come find me,” she said.
Down the street. Don’t look back. Straight ahead. No regrets. He’s wrong. You’re right. Nobody deserves to be spied on like that. Not even if they’re planning on kidnapping the mayor. Okay, maybe that’s the exact situation where somebody should be spied on. But we’re in the right here. I know it.
After what seemed like a few hours later (but had only been a few minutes), she found herself outside her apartment building, which meant the bus to Curleyworld was a five minute walk. Part of her wanted to go home and cry in her bed, but the better part of her knew she had to go tell the bad news to the Shadows.
There was no time to fret. If the cops had Jesse (a kid they knew had powers), the mayor would have him by now. They wouldn’t throw Jesse in juvie or send him home to his folks. They’d lock him up in the cells below City Hall with the other test subjects.
That cinched it. The Shadows were heading into the belly of the beast to rescue their friend. How could she make any other decision, really?
When she got to the bus stop, she pulled three quarters from her pocket and waited for the bus. It squealed as it pulled up to the curb. Cindy stepped back to let an older woman off who was muttering something about ‘my little London’ as she passed. Cindy jumped onto the second step and dropped her quarters into the slot next to the driver.
“Ain’t you a bit young to be going out that way, honey?” the driver asked.
“Don’t worry, mister,” she said, taking the seat behind him so they could chat on the way. “I wouldn’t go anywhere if I didn’t think it was safe.”
3
“You’ve got a whacked out definition of safe,” Coaxle said from behind the hovercraft’s control panel.
“I’ve said I’m sorry a million times,” Cindy said. “I mean, at least we know where he is.” She looked out over the side shaking her head. How could she have been so stupid? How could Bronson have let them take Jesse? As if the other Shadows didn’t already distrust her enough.
“At least it’ll be quiet,” he said. “City Hall should be empty by now. The sun’s going down.”
“Are you kidding?” Cindy said. “City Hall has guards 24/7, not to mention the police station next door.” She held on as Coaxle banked the hovercraft right to avoid a transmission tower.
Bugs, Material Girl, and Digital Boy were strapped to a bench on the starboard side. The ship continued out across the field, aimed at the Colta City skyline.
“Send in the pigs. I ain’t scared,” Coaxle said. He grabbed the lever that controlled the yaw, then another one to alter the pitch. “Keep those buckles snapped in tight. The Colta City Shadows ride tonight!”
The hovercraft shot into the sky, angling up through the smog, scraping at the clouds. Coaxle yanked the levers to the right. The hovercraft flipped upside down. Cindy felt the adrenaline pumping through her veins as the ground dangled above her head.
One thing Coaxle hadn’t accounted for when he went into the loop was the boosters mounted on the craft’s underside. These spinning fans had an important function: to push the craft away from the ground, clear from gravity’s grasp. With the ship turned upside down they fell. Quick. The hovercraft spun through the air. All anyone could see was the vague aquamarine blur spinning around them.
“You two,” Cindy yelled at Material Girl and Digital Boy. “Use your powers. Put some wings on this thing.”
The ground was closer now. Only a couple hundred feet to go. The converting cousins looked at each other, nodded, then Material Girl grabbed Digital Boy’s hand. They closed their eyes. The whole ship glowed bright, bits of fuselage turning into cloth that formed a parachute. It puffed out above them then caught the air. Suspended from the parachute’s center, they listed toward the ground.
Bugs jumped out the instant they landed. His mouth hung open as he stumbled across the grass. His breath short; his face drained. He fell back and laughed. “Can you believe it?” he said between chuckles. “We almost died. Nobody’s gonna believe this.”
Cindy trained her death stare on the red-headed freak show in the grass. “If you tell anybody about any of this, I will tear you—”
“We’re cool,” Bugs said, putting up his hands. “Keep your freaky fantasies to yourself, McNeil. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“What’s with the, like, vendetta or whatever?” Material Girl said. “You can, like, totally trust my Bugs. Huh, babe?” Bugs nodded. “See?” She nodded like the matter was settled.
“Jenn… Material Girl, I’ll make you guys a deal,” Cindy said. “He stays, but if he screws up one time, you’re out too.”
Material Girl looked at Bugs then at her cousin. “He’s gonna prove you wrong, chica.”
They shook on it. Once the cousins repaired the damage to the hovercraft, the Shadows were off, back out over the field along State Route 17.
“Anybody got the new quarters?” Digital Boy asked. He pulled a coin purse from his pocket. “I got three Pennsylvanias I’d be willing to trade for a California or West Virginia.”
“You’re a coin collector now? Your cousin’s a dweeb, babe,” Bugs said, twisting his hands back into a mock pair of glasses. “Hi. My name’s Nuncio, and I love quarters.”
“It would be awesome if you’d chill with the bad guy act for, like, ten seconds,” Material Girl said. “Fighting with Cindy is one thing, but don’t nobody mess with Nuncio. Tú entiendes?
”Fine, babe. Whatever. Hey, McNeil. Got a question for you,” Bugs said.
“What?” Cindy said.
“This is the place that gave everybody powers, huh? Figure I could get some while we’re in there.”
“You know what they did to us in there,” Cindy said. “You’d have to be mental to want to go through that.”
Bugs glared at her. “I’ve been talking to Jenn, and she figures I could handle it.”
Material Girl straightened up in her seat, putting a supportive hand on Bugs’s knee. “He’s brave. And sweet. If he’s gonna be around anyway, powers might, like, come in handy or whatever.”
Cindy shook her head. “Forget it. If we’re going in asking for powers, why are we trying to shut it down in the first place? We might as well hang up a cardboard sign outside our hideout that says BE A LAB RAT — NO KID TOO SMALL — 25¢ PER DAY.”
Bugs and Material Girl looked at each other. Bugs nodded, patting her hand with his, then turned back to Cindy. “Maybe we should get a professional opinion in on this. Wonder what our friend Bronson would think. I’ll bet he knows a lot about superpowers.”
Cindy froze. Did he know? Was he bluffing? Best to play it cool until she was sure. “I dunno. He might ask for some too.”
“Sure he would,” Bugs said. “Unless he already has them.”
“That wimp?” she said. “Yeah, he’s the scourge of Colta City.”
The hovercraft stopped in the air. Coaxle pointed at a bald man in the field. He was shining his flashlight at a possum that wiggled around on its stomach, vomiting all over the matted-down grass. The man’s already-crooked back curled as he giggled and coughed.
“Hey, it’s that guy who—” Cindy looked at Bugs who leaned forward in careful attention. “He stole something from Dogboy. See the green thing he’s holding? It makes you puke.”
The group all agreed the flashlight would be a useful tool in their rescue mission. Coaxle brought down the ship then handed off control to Cindy. He jumped off the side, landing behind the trollish little man.
“Dude, unless that thing iced your fam or something maybe you should give it a rest,” Coaxle said.
The man turned around. His face drooped down. Black. Oily. The eyes had a gray film over them. “Nice suit. Like a speed skater in the Winter Olympics. Why don’t you hand it over, kid? Unless you want to— What the crap? It’s the freaking Jetsons.” He ran up to the hovercraft, pushing down on the side with his full weight. Didn’t budge. “Are you freaking kidding me? What’s the gimmick here? Where’s the gag?”
“No gimmick,” Coaxle said. “Now you have a flashlight that belongs to our buddy. We want it back.”
“Afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree, kid. How do I know you know the kid or whatever? Maybe I’m just holding it for him. That’s it. What happens when the kid does come looking for it? What kinda guy would I be if I gave it to some freaky Olympians I just met?”
Cindy coughed then waved at the man. “Remember me? I was in the van? How about you give that back?”
The man scratched his armpit. “Sorry, kids, but I got big plans for this little gizmo.” He turned the flashlight on Coaxle, who doubled over and wretched. “I’ve been tooling around in that beater over there,” he said, pointing toward an old station wagon with rust along the frame and chipped paint on the hood. “It’s about time I traveled on freaking style. You. Kid. Give me the supersuit.”
Digital Boy stuck his tongue out at the man. “Why don’t you come get it yourself, you flipping cochino?” He pulled a flip phone from his pocket then held it tight in his fist. The plastic and metal convulsed, reforming into a Taser. Digital Boy pointed his new weapon at the man. “Go ahead. I dare you.”
The little troll smiled. “You ain’t my type, buddy.” He shined the flashlight at Digital Boy, who dropped the Taser as the hurling started. He turned it back on Coaxle, who started up again. “Now give me the suit, kid. Unless you want your homie over there to get all dehydrated.”
Digital Boy sighed then stripped down to his boxer shorts. He threw the pukey suit at the man, who slung it over his shoulder, then pointed the flashlight at the other kids: Cindy, Material Girl, and Bugs all leaned over the hovercraft, emptying their stomachs on the ground.
The man crawled up into the ship then kicked all the kids over the side. “Yep, this looks just like the fighters I used to fly during Operation Bright Star. See ya’ later, suckers.” He pulled back on the lever, launching the hovercraft took off into the air and leaving the sickly Shadows alone in the field.
4
The possum waddled over to a fresh pile of vomit, taking a tentative lap. The Shadows kicked back in the grass, staring at the sky while their stomachs recovered.
“Some super team we are,” Coaxle said. “First trip out and we get carjacked.”
“You got off easy. He didn’t make you strip in front of everyone,” Nuncio said from his hiding spot in the tall grass. “Hey, cuz, thing you can help a guy out?”
Material Girl shook her head. “You’re lucky I don’t tell the other cousins about this. Like, no offense but just, like, gag me. Bugs, give me your shirt.”
Bugs’s face twisted up in horror. He crossed his arms. “Babe, this is a limited edition Liquid Ice shirt. You can’t even find these online anymore.”
Material Girl grabbed his sleeve. “Chill out. Nobody’s gonna stare at your chest. I can change it back when we’re done or whatever.”
Bugs relented, pulling the shirt up over his head then handing it over. Material Girl rubbed her hands over the fibers until they’d rearranged themselves into the same white material the other costumes were made from. She tossed the fresh jumpsuit to her cousin, who quickly slipped it on.
Cindy climbed to her feet. She looked like she’d been in a fistfight. Red blotches and busted veins streaked down her cheeks from the puking. This always happened, which is why she always did her best to avoid puking. “Now that you’re dressed, why don’t you and Material Girl see if you can turn that car over there into something more usable so we can get moving?”
The transformational twosome put their hands on the abandoned car the man had left behind. The metal shifted, burning so bright they were forced to look away. When the light faded and the materials settled, a brand new hovercraft sat ready for its crew. Soon enough, the Shadows were airborne again. The possum stared up in confusion as they approached the city.
When they passed over Broad Street, the men, woman, and children looked up at them. “You guys with the movie?” somebody shouted.
“You wish,” Cindy yelled back.
They flew over a bank parking lot where several police vehicles were lined up. Officers brandished electrified nightsticks and assault rifles as they ran basic drills.
“Let’s see how they like being razzed,” Coaxle said with a chuckle. He steered the hovercraft right so they were right over the officers. Coaxle nodded to Digital Boy, and they walked over to the edge of the hovercraft, fiddling around with their pants.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cindy said, looking away from whatever they thought they were doing.
“These guys piss all over us all the time,” Coaxle said. “Me and Nuncio—”
“Digital Boy,” his friend corrected.
“Me and Digital Boy do this all the time. We’re usually shooting from on top of a building though.”
“Uh, guys,” Bugs said. “I think they saw us.” Down below the police were all looking up, aiming their weapons at the flying car hovering above them.
“Take us up before somebody gets shot,” Cindy said. Material Girl jumped behind the controls, pulling the levers back. They shot up between two buildings then banked around the clock tower outside 30th Street Station.
Coaxle and Digital Boy adjusted their pants as they took their seats. “You two are idiots,” Material Girl told them. They didn’t disagree.
On they flew, toward the bronze sea trader statue situated atop a marble pedestal rising high above City Hall. Stars appeared in the purple sky serving as a backdrop. The iconic sight dug into even the most cynical hearts onboard.
“I wonder why the cops were out there anyway,” Cindy said.
“Could be planning another raid down on the west side,” Coaxle said. “They’ve been doing them all week.”
“I haven’t heard about any raids,” Cindy said.
“Sure you haven’t, white girl. They don’t want to upset the booshi folk up in City Center. They busted up my Uncle Jimmy real good. All he was doing was going to the store for some peanut butter, and next thing you know, he gets a blackjack to the ear.”
“Did anybody else feel that?” Material Girl asked, holding her arms as she shivered. “It was, like, a cold chill running through me or something.”
“It’s okay, babe,” Bugs said. “Even without powers, I can still keep you warm.” He put his arm around her. She leaned into him as she brought the craft down on City Hall’s roof.
When they landed two cameras turned toward them. Coaxle shot out two bolts— ZAP, ZAP— then jumped down onto the blacktop. “Let’s ditch the ship,” he said. “Once we find Jesse, he can teleport us back to the hideout where you can make another one.”
Digital Boy laid hands on the craft, turning it into a riding lawn mower that would confound the soldier who’d find it two weeks later.
“Over here,” Cindy called. She examined the door. No handle. A padlock up near the top.
“Stand back, chica,” Digital Boy said. “Let me and my cousin handle it.”
“Think about it. If somebody comes up here and sees the melted lock, they’ll know somebody broke in. Sometimes analog works better.” Cindy reached into her bag, pulling out a flathead screwdriver. She wedged it between the door and the frame then wiggled it down between the lock bolt and the metal plate it fit into. She used the frame as the fulcrum for her makeshift lever. The bolt clicked into the lock. The alarm box mounted next to the door screamed as it swung open.
Coaxle grabbed the box and sent a 10,000 volt dose through its innards. “What were you saying about ‘analog’?” Coaxle said.
“They each have their uses,” she said.
The Shadows ran down a flight of stairs, which ended abruptly. A metal door was cemented into the small landing.
Material Girl knelt down, running her fingers along the rubber seal. “Hey, Bugs. You remember when we had to hide from, like, the mayor’s secretary or whatever? This looks like the other side of that hatch we couldn’t open.” She slid the bolt back and popped open the hatch. “It’s a lot easier to open from up here that’s for sure.”
Once they were all down the ladder, Bugs crept up to the slender window built into the door and peered through it. The mayor’s office sat empty. No lights on. Not a person in sight. “All clear,” Bugs said. He opened the door and waved the others through. Cindy put her finger to her lips, encouraging her teammates to keep quiet as she led them to the door behind the reception desk.
“Okay,” she said. “His office is back through here. Be ready to fight. Jenn and Nuncio should—”
“Material Girl and Digital Boy,” Coaxle said, offended by the disregard for his carefully crafted code names.
“Material Girl and Digital Boy,” Cindy said with a judgmental sigh. “Keep your hands on the ground. If there’s trouble, turn the floor to jelly or something.” The amorphous amigos knelt down, pressing their palms into the thin brown carpeting. Cindy took her time turning the door knob then pulled the door open a few inches.
She peeked through. Nobody in sight.
“Come on,” she said, waving them through. “His office and the elevator are right down this hall.”
They used a similar technique on the next door. All clear. They entered the mayor’s office. Bookshelves lined the walls. A dark leather couch and wooden chair sat in the center of the room. A white flower stood near the window. Three petals with a light purple center. Bugs went over for a closer look.
“What kind of flower is this?” he asked as he reached out to touch it.
“The mayor called it a white nun orchid,” Cindy said.
A mechanical churning from the wood paneling. Several metal pipes poked out, discharging a light green mist out over the white petals.
“What the hell is this crap?” Bugs coughed. “Feels like I’m breathing in slime or something.
The bookcase opened behind them. “Relax,” came a high nasal voice. “Don’t worry. That’s just Stage 2 taking hold.” A short, round man in circular spectacles stepped from the secret elevator. He wore a name patch identifying him as OSBERT —LEAD TECH, SHADOW PROJECT. Osbert Collingwood was Andrus’s second-in-command in the Guild of Thieves and a familiar face to the Shadows. “Once we give you the Stage 3 solution, that’ll clear right up.”
Coaxle shoved Osbert against the bookcase. “Hey, guys. Recognize him? It’s that bastard who locked us all up last week. What are you doing here, nerd? Not so tough without your muscle, are you?”
Osbert smiled. “Johnathan is sorely missed, but don’t get confused, child. There are still resources allotted to me. I can more than take care of myself.”
Osbert rammed his fist into Coaxle’s ribs. The boy fell then flipped around and pointed his hands at Osbert. “Big mistake, creep.”
Osbert pulled a white box from the front pocket of his overalls then pointed it in Coaxle’s direction. Coaxle grunted, pushing his hands out. Not one spark flew out.
“Feeling a tad drained?” Osbert asked. “Soon that will be the least of your problems.” He reached over and hit a blue switch on the wall. The spraying mist turned from green to pink, hanging as thick as soup in the room.
Cindy felt her eyes growing heavy. Digital Boy fell back on the couch. Material Girl and Bugs stumbled around. The Shadows fell, and Osbert chuckled.
“Excellent timing, kiddie winkies. We were in need of some new test subjects. Children do burn out so fast these days. They don’t make them like they used to.”
5
A drop smacked Cindy’s forehead. The cool water slid down her temple, collecting in a puddle that soaked the back of her head.
“Urgh,” she said, struggling to sit up.
“Easy, McNeil,” said Axle’s voice from… somewhere. “We’re safe… for now anyway. You gotta keep breathing. That’s it. Let’s get you up.”
“Axle, is that you?” Cindy asked as he lifted her head.
“Yeah, but you should know we ain’t alone.”
Dozens of kids stood around her with dirt-smeared faces and ratty old clothes. Their hair was uneven and greasy. Jennifer and Nuncio stood in the back, watching her over the other kid’s heads.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“You remember that nerd in the office? The gas? Knocked us straight out,” Axle said. “We woke up down here in Freaktown. They ever bring you down here after they locked you up?”
“I… I don’t remember much before waking up in that cell with you,” Cindy said, although she remembered enough.
“This is where they take kids to test out their powers. If you lose, it’s back to the cells.”
“I’ve waited for you, Cindy McNeil,” a young man in tight leather broke out from the crowd. His blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. The fact he stood a head taller than the others suggested he was the oldest prisoner. The faint blond whiskers on his face confirmed it. “I am Hawk. I’ve lived here in Freaktown since the beginning. I’ve seen the past, present, and future. Weeks ago I saw you come here. Finally, we can begin our fight for freedom.”
“Is this guy legit?” Cindy asked.
Axle pushed Cindy behind him as he shot some warning sparks from his hand. “We don’t want to fight our way out, Hawk. We just want our boy Jesse. A little blond kid about eleven years old. Is he here?”
Hawk stroked his beard then gestured toward the far wall. The pillars were laid out in a grid across the entire corridor. The concrete was charred. Red streaks splashed across the ground, staining it. A sleeping bag was crumpled next to a concrete pillar. A blond head rested on it. Jesse. “They brought him here twelve cycles ago,” Hawk said. “He did not fight. Could not fight. So scared. I told him I saw you coming to save him. He slept better then.”
“So you can see into the future?” Cindy asked.
Hawk nodded. “It’s why I win every cycle they let me enter. I see every blow before it—” He snatched a long knife from his boot and held it to Axle’s throat. “I see where you’re going. Stop this journey before we find ourselves in a place we don’t want to go.”
“Put down the knife,” Cindy said. “We’re just like all of you. We wouldn’t try to—”
Axle smiled. “No. Dude’s right. I was gonna light him up. Figured if he was legit he’d find a way to stop me.”
“Conducting these smart ass tests is brave when your opponents already distrust you. But you know that already.” Hawk sheathed his knife then held out his hand. “You came here before. What was your name?”
Axle took the hand and shook. “Axle. I’m the kid with the electrical powers whose butt you kicked a couple months back.”
“Ah yes, before they moved the errors here. These are the ones whose powers hurt them. We put ‘em over there when they come in. Sometimes it feels like it’d be kinder to kill ‘em, but it hasn’t come to that yet.” Hawk pointed between two pillars.
Cindy could make out several figures in the dark. Some looked like human beings with exaggerated proportions: a hulking head, floppy arms, and so on. These mounds of pink flesh heaved in the shadows. She thought she saw an eye poking out. She turned away. “I heard it was bad, but I never expected—”
A door built into one of the pillars slid open. A creaky tarnished gurney rolled out, shaking as it rolled across the rocky unfinished stone floor pushed by a man in a surgeon’s mask. A boy’s arm fell out from under the blue sheet draped over it. The man stopped, locked the wheels, walked over to the side, then pushed the body off the gurney. It hit the floor with a slick splat. A pathetic groan escaped. “Welcome to Freaktown. Wipe your eyes. Don’t get tears in your wound. That’s a silly course of action.” the man said. His shrill chuckle, that arrogant cackle, ripped through Cindy’s ears. He ripped off the mask. There stood Osbert, second-in-command of the Guild of Thieves. His thin lips turned up in a grin as his eyes scanned the children’s faces. “Where is Destiny? We have an intruder upstairs we need dealt with discreetly.”
Shouts of “Hey!” and “Watch out!” from the crowd. Dusty clouds blew across the concrete as two… nothings… skittered to Osbert’s side. “What’s the damage, Professor?” said a female voice with a southern twang. “Is he cute?”
Osbert’s cheeks went red. “I’m sure I could never say, dear, but he’s dangerous. The mayor wants him taken down quiet and quick. Understood?”
“Whatever gets me outta Freaktown, right?” the voice said.
Osbert rolled the gurney into the elevator. “Come, dear. Two more trips, then the next cycle begins. Plenty of new warriors here now.” The metal floor clanged as the invisible girl’s feet stomped across it.
“Warriors?” Cindy said as the elevator doors slid shut. “I’m not fighting in some superpowered teenage thunder dome.”
Hawk waved to a short girl near the back. “Bonnie, come explain.”
A young girl in a tattered blue nightgown took Cindy and Axle’s hands. She locked eyes with them. “You must complete the cycles,” she said. “Hawk’s seen this happen already. Years ago. Trust me. If only… If you look at it from my perspective, I think you’ll see I’m right.”
Cindy didn’t agree, but when she went to protest, all she could say was “You know what? You’re right. We’ll fight our way out, and we’ll take you guys with us.”
“Preach it,” Axle said. “We’re in good hands with Hawk. He makes good sense.”
Bonnie smiled. Her eyes sparkled with rainbow light flairs. She blushed. “Thanks. I knew if you stopped to listen to me for a minute you’d say yes.”
“Anybody, like, seen my boyfriend anywhere?” Jennifer asked.
The human pile Osbert had dumped out by the other freaks groaned.
me… me… this… power? It said. no more…
“Bugs?” she said, running to his side. She gently pulled back the blue sheet wrapped around his body. Scabs over his body and face. Between them fat pink, fleshy fingers poked out, making him look like an earthbound sea anemone. Horrified, she pulled the sheet down to his waist. A gash ran down his chest. It chomped open and shut, an orifice filled with razor-sharp teeth, each one poking out at a different angle.
“Oh, god,” Jennifer said, falling back on her butt as she back away from the monster.
Bugs twisted around, his chest-mouth chomping at the air. As he caught a glimpse of his chest, he shook in horror.
fix me… please…
“What happened to you, Bugsy?” Jennifer asked.
Hawk stepped forward with his hands out, palms up, hoping to gain the monster’s trust. “Listen here, friend. None of us want to hurt ya’. What those guys upstairs did? The pink solution in barrels with Thoth Chemical stamped on them? That’s what caused this.”
“It hurts,” Bugs screamed, white pus oozing from his tear ducts and down his face.
“Aye, it’s going to. Best we can do for ya’ now is put you with the other errors. A few of these poor souls can talk, so at least so you shouldn’t be lonely.”
Jennifer leaned her head on Nuncio’s shoulder, who huffed as his cousin cried all over his shirt. “I should have never let him come with us.”
“He insisted,” Cindy said, as she walked around the monster who used to be the school bully. “We told him what could happen. He asked for this. Biker boy, help me carry him over there.”
Hawk grabbed between the pink organelles around Bugs’s wrist and lifted. Cindy lifted his feet, gagging as the flesh-bags slapped against her hands like sacks of warm jelly.
“He’s a friend?” Hawk asked.
“Not really, but I’ve known him a long time. When you know anybody long enough, maybe you start to treat them like one.”
“Very wise,” Hawk said. “I can see why you will wait.”
“Wait for what?” she asked.
“The one to wait,” he said, smiling. “Come. Discuss the cycles.”
“I need to talk to the jerk. Alone,” she said.
“Hurry. The professor will come back soon.” He nodded to her then fell back with the others.
Cindy knelt down and took Bugs’s hand, speaking softly into his ear. “We’ll fix this, Bugs. I swear we will. By the time we’re done with the mayor, he won’t be able to hurt anyone else. We’ll figure out some way to turn errors like you back to normal.”
Bugs chuckled. His chest-mouth wheezed, blowing hot, putrid air across Cindy’s face. “C—c-can it, McNeil. If I was you, I’d tell me just about anything to shut me up too. Go ahead and hang out with Mel Gibson over there. Can’t you see I’m prepping for my new gig at the aquarium?”
Cindy chuckled, pushed back his red hair, and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. When she rejoined the others, Hawk was running down how the cycles worked:
“We split into two teams. They put us in these rooms on the side. Team Red or Team Green. Whoever wins waits on the other side of the room. Then the winners fight each other until the last team standing gets to go to the next step.”
“What comes next?” Axle asked.
“We don’t know. I hope something better than… this.”
“How do you see us breaking out, dude?” Nuncio asked. “Seems like they have this joint locked down tight.”
“In the near future your friend here—” He gestured to Cindy. “— will hear a word that only she would recognize. When you hear this word, reach out. Reach out and grab the professor and don’t let go. The rest of you, when you see this happen, run to the elevator and don’t stop moving until you make it to the street.”
“You’ll come with us, right?” said a young girl no older than ten who was dressed in a large adult t-shirt that dragged along the ground.
Hawk smiled, leaned down, and fixed her matted hair. “Old ones, watch out for the little ones.” He spun around, startling the children. “Little ones, keep your eyes on the shadows. Let the old ones know if you see any eyes.”
“You didn’t answer her question,” Cindy said. “We’ll wait for you. I’m not letting them take that elevator up unless we’re all on it.”
Hawk scooped up a rock, licked it, then pulled out his knife and scraped it across the rock to hone the blade. “You should not worry about me. Remember: I already know what happens. Now be calm. The professor has come.”
The elevator door slid open. Osbert walked out carrying a plastic habitrail. “I lied,” he said. “There were two subjects, but they’re the size of grasshoppers so only one trip was required.” He tapped on the container, causing the two shrunken teenagers to fall back into the wood chips. “Come then. Let’s put you with the others. Then the cycles begin.”
6
Osbert called back into the elevator. “Come now, you gelatinous goons.”
Three semitransparent green blobs slurped out of the elevator. Their bodies were composed of green goo held in place by a thick plastic sack coated in petroleum jelly.
“We don’t have to fight those things, right?” Cindy asked Hawk.
“No, they are here to help run the game,” he whispered. “They only hurt you if you hurt them.”
The blobs pushed the children around the room, arranging them into two large groups: Cindy, Hawk, and Jennifer were all on Team Red, while Axle, Nuncio, and Jesse stood with Team Green. The blobs nudged each team into their own rooms, where they waited for their turn to compete.
Osbert stripped off his apron to reveal red overalls. He stepped behind a three-inch thick sheet of bulletproof glass by the west wall then picked up the yellow legal pad from the console. He wiped the blood off his hand, tested his pen, then nodded to his blob assistant. “Bring out the first group now. Quickly. I’ll need to check on Destiny before long.”
The blobs brought out Cindy along with two twin boys for Team Red. Bonnie and Jesse stepped out for Team Green.
“Hey, Osbutt. How about making it a fair fight?” Cindy said, raising a fist toward his observation station. “It’s supposed to be three-on-three.”
Osbert chuckled then flicked a switch on the wall behind him. A black light flickered on, revealing an ethereal floating girl behind Team Green.
“Well, never mind then,” Cindy said, slinking back to talk to her teammates. “What can you two do?”
The boy looked at each other and sighed. “I’m doing it,” they said in perfect unison. They reached out, grabbing each other by the shoulders, then hugged each other. A golden shimmer. A whining squeal. Their two disparate bodies morphed together into one singular being.
“Okay, now that’s really not fair,” she said. “It’s one kid. See how short he is? He counts as one person at best.”
Osbert switched the black light off then leaned over and spoke into the pencil-thin Superscope microphone in his left hand. “Issue noted. Request denied. This experiment is not designed to be fair. Enough chatter from the rats. The cycle begins in 3… 2… 1…”
The lights flashed. Flared. Strobed. A horn blared. Sharp staccato violin music struck out from hidden speakers and pierced the panicked children’s ears.
“I love both your powers, but you should probably let me fight. It makes the most sense, right?” Bonnie said to her teammates.
“That makes a lot of sense,” Jesse said.
“Perfect sense,” said the ghost, her voice coming from nowhere.
Bonnie smiled then approached Team Red. She reached out for Cindy’s hand. “Look, we shouldn’t fight each other. You seem nice. Who’s going to want to be friends with somebody who fights, yeah?”
Cindy smiled at the girl. She made good sense. Cindy wasn’t in any mood to lose the few friends she’d found over the last year. Yeah, Bonnie made a lot of sense. “I’d never fight you. We’ll just surrender, right?” she asked her partner.
The lad divided himself into the twins again. “We don’t know,” they said. “It sounds fair, but do you think we can trust her?”
“We can trust you, can’t we?” Cindy said. She felt a twitch in her arm, like it wanted to pop off her shoulder.
“Sure you can. Thank you. I just knew you’d see it my way.” Bonnie’s pearly white smile spread wide enough to get right under Cindy’s skin.
Cindy returned the smile then punched Bonnie right in the mouth. “Oh, God. I’m sorry,” she said, falling over herself to help Bonnie up. “I don’t know what came over me. You’re right. We surr—” Cindy’s fist cracked across Bonnie’s temple before she even knew she’d swung. “Oh, jeez. Please don’t—”
Bonnie ducked, holding her belly as she pivoted away from Cindy’s arms. A spin. A whistle. An uppercut to Cindy’s chin.
Cindy jumped on Bonnie, her fists pounding away at the younger girl’s face. The first dozen punches were in self defense. The next dozen were an expression of her anger over the fight with Bronson. The next several were devoted to what they mayor had done to her… to all of them. Fury soared in her chest then out through her arms as she remembered the face of her father. Eventually her strikes lost all motive or focus. Her fists became blurs striking down.
Bonnie was responsible for almost none of the rage seething in Cindy, so she naturally took offense when the punched started. She attempted to use her silver tongue to talk her way out, but a well-placed punch and she bit right through it. Beaten, bloody, and desperate she waved to her teammates for help.
“Don’t worry,” Jesse said, gesturing to where he thought the ghost girl might be. “We’re fine right here. You can handle it. Remember? You said it yourself.”
After a time, Cindy’s twin teammate(s) pulled her off. She was breathing hard and heavy. Spit spattered off her lips. “We surrender,” she said.
Osbert cocked his head to the side. “What a bizarre thing to have done. Is the other girl still alive?”
A blob slurped over to Bonnie, inspected her, then wobbled its top back and forth in what one could assume was a nod.
“Well, bring both girls back here, then send the rest back into the queue,” Osbert said. “We’ll bring this up to you-know-who after we complete the cycles.” He flashed the lights, signaling the blobs to bring out the next batch. “Tina, Mary Death, and Anonymous for green team. Axle, Nuncio, and Hawk for red team.”
The blobs nudged Cindy and Bonnie into red office chairs sitting behind Osbert’s observation station. They grew gummy protrusions like hands that fastened the handcuffs already attached to the chair around the girls’ wrists. Cindy flexed the muscles in her forearm as the cuff closed, hoping to force enough slack to wiggle out when the time was right.
“What’s with the piles of snot?” Cindy asked.
“Pets of the fifteenth dimension. Gifts from you-know-who,” Osbert said. “They are immune to most extraordinary abilities, so they help us keep you awful children under control.”
“You—know-who? Because I sure don’t.”
“Hush, child. The cycle iterates in 3… 2… 1…”.
Team Green entered the arena. A dark-haired girl, Tina, took a step forward. Mary Death’s white skin glistened like glitter as she stepped out from the shadows, almost floating across the ground.
The anonymous girl sucked at the end of her long purple pony tail as a blob pushed her into place with the others. She wore green army fatigues. Her hair was half shaved off, exposing a maroon scar above her ear.
Axle, Nuncio, and Hawk sauntered in from the opposite side. “Dude, you didn’t say nothing about fighting a bunch of girls,” Nuncio said.
“Why does it matter?” Hawk said as he peeled off his leather jacket and tossed it on the ground. “We are all friends. Girls? Boys? To hurt your friend is to hurt yourself, but we only do what we must for our future.” He pointed to Tina, bowed, then dropped his left leg back and raised his fist. “May we all survive.”
Tina looked back at the others then raised her fist. “May we all survive.”
The two teams rushed at each other at full speed as Osbert chuckled to himself in the corner. Cindy waited for the word that only she would know and hoped that Hawk really could see the future for all their sakes.
7
Axle shot a bolt into Mary Death’s leg as she ducked behind a column. He aimed at her again, energy crackling around his hand in a blue orb. A shot… A hit!
Mary Death poked at the burn in her spiderweb tights. She laughed as decay spread out around her. The concrete floor (and the pillar she leaned against) crumbled into brown rotted-out chunks as damage rolled toward Axle.
Tina (the dark-haired one) shook her head wildly, screaming in a language that sounded equal parts ancient and fake. The bricks in the wall behind bled through for an instant before she turned transparent and fell through the floor.
Hawk took his knife out as he plodded toward the spot where the dark-haired one disappeared. He closed his eyes then bowed his head, standing in reverent silence.
Nuncio’s opponent (the “anonymous” girl in green army fatigues) held her fists at her side. They trembled and turned white. She sucked her cheeks then bit down just enough to keep them from moving involuntarily.
“What’s wrong?” Nuncio asked.
The girl’s mouth ran straight as a pencil, but Nuncio thought he saw the corners of her mouth twitch upward as she opened it. A high-pitched wail, like a banshee’s shriek, tore through the air. The pitch raised higher and higher and higher until human ears refused to even hear it.
Cindy felt the acid in her stomach bubbling, as Nuncio fell. She pulled against the handcuffs as he grabbed his ears. He screamed in pain as Osbert shoved her back into the chair.
“Freaktown is no place for heroes, whelp,” Osbert said. “Stay still. Your electrical friend might have met his match.”
Axle ran away from the decay Mary Death was spreading through the arena. He dodged a chunk of ceiling then tripped, skidding across the broken concrete. He held his hand out. One last shot at saving them from the Gothic nuisance bringing the building down around them. His blue electricity zipped across the rubble, closing the distance between them in a microsecond. It shot into her head… right in the temple.
Mary Death looked even paler than usual. She sniffed. She shivered. Her head fell over like a ragdoll’s, bouncing up as it pulled against her neck.
“You gonna help or what?” Axle yelled to Hawk, who was still standing silent by himself.
Hawk growled then held up his knife horizontally in front of his chest. A haze, a wisp, a cloud… A dark-haired girl rose from the ground and into Hawk’s arms. He pressed the knife into her throat as her body became solid. She gasped but stopped the motion before her throat got sliced by the blade.
Axle sighed then ran off into the grid of pillars surrounding them. He found Nuncio on his knees, crying as the anonymous girl’s acid voice tore at his ears. As the girl flipped her streak of purple hair away from Nuncio’s grasp, a hand grabbed it and tugged her back.
Axle stepped out, catching her and bringing her down to the ground with a nurse’s careful attention. She drew in a deep breath to scream, but before she could let a sound out, Axle tapped her temples with a quick hit of electricity, sending her off to a far happier reality than the one they were currently living through.
When Cindy looked back at Hawk, he was still holding the knife to the girl’s throat. “I’m not the Tina you’re looking for,” the girl said. She put her hands together, begging. “Let me go, and I can explain everything I swear.”
“You seem strange. Different. Not the same girl they brought down this morning. I can see it in your eyes,” Hawk said. He reached put his hand around her throat. “Whoever you are, I’m sorry about this.” The air around her neck distorted it, like looking through a fun house mirror. Tina’s left eye twitched. She crumpled. Hawk lowered her to the ground. Axle and Nuncio looked on, horrified at the action of their teammate. “She’ll wake up in five minutes, mates. Only gave the power switch a toggle.”
“Power switch?” Nuncio said. “What? You mean this chica’s some sort of robot?”
“No, not a robot, but she’s had some upgrades,” Hawk said, parting the hair on the back of her head to reveal a perfectly shaved circle where her skull met her neck. A black wafer covered in gold circuitry was soldered to the skin. “The professor calls it his Osbinistration Unit. It lets them take control of whoever has one. They connect it to your brain, so when I freeze time around, it her brain shuts down and the computer chip reboots. She’ll be fine after that.”
“Red team wins,” Osbert shouted. “All test subjects must step away from the device. Willowwood will be furious if I let you urchins destroy it.”
Cindy’s ears perked up. Willowwood, hmm? She recognized the name. He was the weird magical guy who was somehow behind Dogboy’s powers. He’d also told Dogboy Cindy was lying to him about her powers (which was true). Somehow that multidimensional mischief maker was behind this whole conspiracy: the mayor, the kids with powers, Dogboy, everything.
This new information didn’t just make her happy. She was thrilled. The last piece of the puzzle was hers, and as soon as they escaped, she’d be able to start piecing it together.
But first she had to save the mayor’s shadows.
Cindy recalled the instructions Hawk had given her. She eyed the blobs watching over them.
“Psst,” she whispered to Bonnie. “You wanna get outta here?”
Bonnie nodded, flinching as if she thought Cindy might strike her. Deep purple bruises were still forming on her cheeks, and the blood dripping down her chin made her look even more pitiful.
“Keep them distracted for a minute.” Cindy nodded at the blobs.
Bonnie leaned over and whispered to them. Honestly… so nice today… she’s not hurting anything…
The blobs appeared to look away, but Cindy found it hard to tell due to their gelatinous nature. She jerked forward like she was going to run so she could gauge their reaction.
No reaction. They were too enamored by Bonnie’s rhetoric to notice the mousy young girl to her right. This was the desired result. She relaxed her wrist, which gave the handcuff around it enough slack for her to wiggle her hand out.
As Osbert scratched a few notes into his notebook, Cindy lunged at his legs. Contact. A stumble. He fell, missing Cindy’s head by a hair. As Osbert kicked and clawed at her, she held on to his leg for dear life.
Hawk smiled when he saw Cindy fighting with Osbert. He threw his arms around his teammates. “Axle, free the others. Nuncio, we need your power to override the security on the elevator. Can you make it so we don’t need a key card for access?”
Nuncio nodded.
“Good, I’ll help Cindy. Quick, before they can send reinforcements.” Hawk ran to help as Cindy lost the advantage in her fight.
“Let me go,” Osbert said, his voice a full octave higher than usual. A sickening CRUNCH as he flipped her around and brought her down on his glasses. As he moved to strike her, Hawk’s foot pressed into his neck. The boy leaned down, pressing his blade into Osbert’s back.
“Tonight you’ll wish you’d never come here, Professor,” Hawk said. He waved Cindy away. “Go. Save your friends. This man has done horrible things. Treated us like lab rats. Turned us against each other. I’ll make sure he never does it again.”
“We’ll need you up there,” Cindy said. “I can wait—”
“Go,” he said. “I can’t see where I’m going, but I know where I’ve been until now and it’s not where I end up.”
“You two should stay right here until I get back, okay?” Bonnie said to her two blobby buddies. They jiggled in agreement.
“We’ll see you up top,” Cindy said as Bonnie joined her.
“You wish,” Hawk said.
“You wish I wished,” she replied, hoping she was hiding the embarrassed smile forcing its way across her face. She grabbed Bonnie’s arm and ran toward the elevator, where the others were all already waiting. Nuncio touched the control panel. The metal panel and round plastic buttons melted around each other until they reformed into a simple green switch labeled ON.
“Hold on, noobs,” he said as he mashed down the green button. “We’re riding it up as far as it’ll go.”
The elevator came to a stop in the main basement. The air inside it was filled with the stale breath and odors pouring off the forty-or-so children packed inside as tight as items in a magician’s trunk.
Cindy held her breath as the door slid open. She had no idea what might be on the other side. The mayor? Superpowered flunkies with Osbinistration Units? The Colta City police? Anything (or anyone) might be waiting on the other side of the opening door.
8
An old man who wore a gray shirt with a name tag labeled ADAM was counting the stitches on his shoes when the elevator door opened. He reached for the radio microphone mounted to his shoulder. “How do, Mr. Osbert? One second and I’ll get you clearance to—”
Nuncio jumped from the elevator, ripping the mic off Adam’s shoulder. With his power, he transformed the basic device into a Taser, which he turned on the guard. “Stand down, abuelo, or I’m gonna treat you to 20,000 volts of justice.”
Mary Death edged past Cindy then out of the elevator. “Wait, he’s got it under control,” Cindy advised her. Mary didn’t listen. As she grabbed Adam’s shirt he pulled a gun from his belt.
“Back in the elevator, or I’ll shoot the lot of you,” Adam warned the children pressing toward him.
“That’s a horrible idea, don’t you think?” Bonnie yelled from the back.
Adam smiled, nodded, then dropped the gun to his side. “Of course. Why would I shoot a bunch of middle schoolers? Where’s your parents anyhow?”
Mary took the opportunity to grab the guard’s arm. Her eyes rolled back in her head. The whites turned black. A thousand tiny cockroaches pour out her ears, mouth, and throat. The bugs crawled down her arms then up Adam’s. An unending stream of filthy insects enveloped his body. He screamed as he tried to pull away, but she wasn’t having that.
“What the crap is she doing?” Cindy asked.
“You probably don’t want to look,” warned one of the other kids.
Mary Death laughed. Her dead black eyes turned red. Her laugh became a retching sound. Adam was gone now, replaced by an Adam-shaped roach hill. Their brown bodies cascaded over each other. Without an Adam to hold them up, the roaches scurried into any dark corner they could find. Cindy wondered what had happened to the guard. Had they eaten him, or something worse?
“There. All fixed. All clean,” Mary said. She held up her hand. A single roach had found a perch on her outstretched pointer finger. She gave it a peck on its little head.
The dark hallway seemed familiar to Cindy. Working on a hunch, she felt along the wall until she discovered a panel with two buttons. The bottom one was already depressed, so Cindy pushed in the top one. A panel in the wall shook then opened. A service elevator descended, stopping on their floor. She shoved Nuncio inside then pointed at the three buttons on the control panel labeled ML, TL, and LL. “ML goes to the mayor’s office. We’d better not risk running into him unless we have to. He can wait until tomorrow.” She pushed in the TL button. “Take a group up and make sure it’s safe, then hit LL when you’re ready to come back.”
Five kids climbed on, and Nuncio pulled the accordion gate shut as the elevator started its climb.
“You others come with me,” Cindy said. “I want every door in this place open. We’re getting the rest out too.”
“Are you crazy? We’re here. Free and clear. Now you wanna make some noise on the way out?” Axle said.
“Like, if we’re gonna save people how about we start with Bugs?” Jennifer said. “Like, we’re going to fix him, right?”
Cindy frowned. “He didn’t look good, Jenn. Didn’t you see his chest? We can’t save him. I’m sorry, Jenn.”
“You two do whatever you want. I’m going back down to get him,” Jenn said.
“You won’t save him. You can’t do it on your own. I know it hurts, but we can still save the other kids here if we give it half a shot.”
Jenn wiped her eyes with the back of her fishnet glove then leaned in and gave Cindy a hug. “Okay, let’s do it.”
When they rejoined Axle, they found him discussing options for opening the cells with the other kids.
“I can walk through walls,” said a short boy in ratty overalls with a tall cowlick sticking up on his head. His blue and white striped shirt was caked with dirt. He pulled a slingshot from his back pocket. “Don’t worry. I’m armed.”
“That ain’t gonna do jack against a bullet,” Axle said. He ripped the slingshot from the kid’s hand and tossed it on the ground. “What do you think this is? Recess?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said. “The old guy who lives next to us says I can be a real menace sometimes.”
“Yo, it ain’t like they’re gonna have anybody in there anyways. Maybe you could slip through and bring them back without setting off the alarms.”
“Bring them back?” the boy asked. “Are you crazy? They can’t walk through walls. Only I can.”
The wall slid open, and Nuncio emerged from the elevator. He flashed a smile at the group and declared. “No issue but a tissue, muchachos. No pigs around anywhere, except for a few knocked out in the hall.”
Jennifer knelt down and retrieved the boy’s slingshot. She gave it back then licked her palm and ran it across his cowlick to flatten it out. “You keep your, like, weapon or whatever. Me and cuz here can handle busting into those cells.”
The boy took his slingshot, but the look on his face told Cindy he wasn’t too happy about it. His bottom lip shook. “Aw, I’m sorry. I guess I only wanted to help you guys out. You all seemed so swell and everything. I thought I could be on your team.”
Cindy gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re a sweet, kid. Trust me. You don’t want to get mixed up with us. We’re all menaces too.” She pointed to Jesse, who was helping the younger children into the service elevator. “Why don’t you go help Jesse? Jesse, this is…”
“Denny,” the boy said.
“This is Denny. You two keep helping people with the elevator, okay?” After a quick tutorial from Nuncio, they started up the shaft with the second batch.
Axle, Cindy, Jennifer, and Nuncio crept down the hallway, backs up against each other. Jennifer and Nuncio laid hands on the door, turning it into a puddle of melted metal.
“There’s nobody in here,” Nuncio said.
“Isn’t there?” Cindy replied, pointing to the haze in the air along the back wall. It glitched like a TV trying to find the right channel. You could see a boy standing there for a half second at a time. “It’s okay,” she said to the haze. “We’re gonna get you out. Head up that way and we’ll meet you in a minute.”
When the boy appeared again, he flashed Cindy a thumbs up. The next time he appeared, he was standing a few feet closer to the door. Another glitch and he was halfway down the hall on his way to join the others.
The Shadows continued down the hall, opening every cell they passed. Most kids thanked them, but a few insisted they didn’t need any help. One even refused to leave, claiming the conditions in the facility were better than what was on offer over on the west side of town.
When they’d cleared the last cell and returned to the elevator, they found Jesse and Denny helping the last few kids onto the elevator.
“Thought I heard a siren this last time,” Jesse said. “Come on. There should be enough room for everybody.” Jennifer, Nuncio, and Axle climbed straight on, but Cindy hung back to inspect the eerie green glowing plants along the walls.
“Do you guys remember that plant we got sprayed with?” Cindy asked. “The white nun orchid up in the mayor’s office?”
The others nodded.
“I think the mayor is using it to give all these kids powers. Maybe if he didn’t have it, he couldn’t do it anymore. Nobody could. It’s unique. The day he captured me, he wouldn’t shut up about how rare the thing was.”
“I sure as hell ain’t going after it,” Axle said. “We’ve lucked out so far, but if we’re gonna live to take him down tomorrow, we gotta get out tonight, you hear?”
Cindy leaned into the elevator and mashed the TL button in. “Then I’ll do it myself. Send it back down. I’ll see you back at the place.”
Jennifer jumped forward, sticking her arm out to stop the gate from closing. “No, you gotta come with us. What if you get, like, caught or whatever? We’ll never get the mayor without your help.”
“I’ll be fine,” Cindy said.
“That sounds familiar,” came Hawk’s voice from down the hallway. His skin was singed and bruised. Blood splatters stained his shirt. He ran a hand through his brown feathery hair and smiled. “Leave her, Material Girl. Take it from somebody who can see what will happen. That’s where she should be.”
Cindy punched Hawk in the arm. “I don’t need your permission, new guy. What are you doing? I might need some help.”
“I’ll go with the rest if they’ll have me,” he said. “They need help more than you do, Cindy McNeil.”
The others agreed. Hawk nodded to Cindy as he stepped by her and joined the others.
The elevator ascended then came back down. Cindy stepped on, then pressed the ML button. As she went up, she recalled Hawk’s smile. He’s pretty cute, she thought. I wonder what a date with him would be like. She felt guilty as soon as it crossed her mind. Her and Bronson weren’t getting along, but she still liked him. This is why she’d always been so hesitant to kiss any boy. Her mom always told her, as soon as you start kissing people, life is nothing but stupid drama. Cindy figured she’d been right about that.
The elevator stopped. Cindy listened for a second. The mayor’s office seemed quiet. Placing her thumb over the DOOR OPEN button, she said a quick prayer and pushed it in.
Out of all the enemies she’d imagined she might face, she’d never considered the two figures who stood shaking hands by the white nun orchid. The first one, Mayor Lane, she’d half expected. The person he shook hands with made her feel sick… Flat out sick. There was no mistaking him: Dog mask, cape, red shirt, and khaki shorts. Dogboy… Bronson, her boyfriend… and there he was shaking hands with the man she hated more than just about anybody on Earth.
Dogboy noticed her too and even pointed her out to the mayor. Together they stalked closer. Cindy cowered in the open elevator as the unusual duo drew near.
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