Working Title: In the Land of the Blind
© 2008-2010 James Callaghan. All Rights Reserved.
Jonothan
Jonothan was used to being around famous people, was used to being famous himself. He would have thought himself immune to starstrikes -- until Sid clambered out of the airbus and grinned at those assembled on the rooftop. Jonothan's jaw dropped, and he heard his own gasp as though at a distance.
Mike looked at him. "You okay, there, Jon?"
He grabbed Mike's shoulder. "That's..." he gasped out. Has to be -- that hair is unmistakable.
"Take a breath," Mike said with a grin. "Yeah, that's Sid Walker from Generation Gap. I take it you're a fan?"
Jonothan nodded dumbly. "Me and Tiff both," he said. "We've seen them in concert like ten times."
Mike's grin broadened. "Hey Sid," he shouted. "You've got a fan over here!"
Sid hopped down and made his way over, stopping to greet Renee with a bear hug. Then he was standing in front of Jonothan. Sid was a tall guy, his lean, inked body on display under a dark leather vest. He looked every inch the rock star, from his long black hair, tipped with electric blue, to his fashionably clunky boots. He smiled at Jonothan, said: "You look familiar. Have we met?"
"You actually have, Sid. The Lost Night, Jonothan was there too," Mike said.
Jonothan looked at Mike, incredulous. "He was there, too? You didn't tell me that!"
Sid laughed. "I wasn't that famous then; that was before I joined Gap. So you're a Numinai, then?"
"Oh, of course," Mike said. "Manners. Lambda Three Sid Walker, meet Alpha Three Jonothan Thebom -- also known, back in the day, as Flare."
It was Sid's turn to be impressed. "It's an honor, sir," he said, extending a hand. To Mike, he said, "That's right, you mentioned the Heroes were there that night."
From behind Sid, Celeste said, "'Lost Night'?" Mike's sister raised an eyebrow.
Mike shook his head. "Story for another time. Have CAM tell you about it while we're away, if he's got time. It's only his favorite story."
"Yeah," said Chris, a tall, thin man with a shock of sandy blond hair. "That's the story of how he finally evaded house arrest. Thanks to me, I might add."
Mike raised his hands. "Okay, enough of this shit," he said. "We need to get going, now Sid's here. Chris, I need you -- well, CAM, actually -- to have a look a Sid's bus. We need to get to the Island a bit faster than the five or six hours that heap will take."
"Heap?" Sid protested in mock indignation. "That, sir, is a Mercedez-Benz. That's the finest airbus on the market. Set me back enough, anyway."
"Right, you worry about money," Mike said. "You probably had your butler buy it for you."
"Fuck off," Sid riposted. "So what do you want Chris to do to it. Or CAM, or whatever?"
Chris sighed, closed his eyes. To Jonothan, the man seemed to blur, although he was standing still. Jonothan blinked a couple times. Mike caught him at it. "That's CAM coming out to play," he said. "Chris is CAM's host."
Jonothan looked at him blankly. Mike said, "Okay, CAM's alien nanoware, right. Billions of little robots. He infected our building when it was off-planet and came with us when we came back."
Confused, Jonothan said, "He? I thought you said CAM was a machine."
"Self-aware machine, thanks," an eerily treble voice said from Chris' mouth. "Problem is, it's part of my programming that I can't leave the host building. Then Chris came along, I saved his life -- but I had to take over his body in order to do it. Chris is mobile, hence so am I!"
"Later, later, later," Mike said, impatient. "Sid, you okay with him monkeying with your car or not?"
"Yeah, okay sure," the musician said. "Do what you have to. In the meantime -- I came to help, Mike, but I'm telling you: You're fucking nuts."
"I've been telling him that," Renee said.
"We all have," Celeste confirmed.
"Oh ye of little faith," Mike said. "I've been in worse scrapes, with less backup."
"You had us," Willow said quietly.
"Not at first, I didn't."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Jonothan exploded. "Mike, you have way too goddamn much back story, man."
"I have indeed lived a full life," Mike said, unperturbed. "CAM. How long?"
That weird treble voice called out from the bus: "At the tone, it will be seven minutes, forty-three seconds. Beep."
Shaking his head, Mike said: "Is it just me, or has Chris given CAM a sense of humor?"
"Okay, seriously though, Mike," Sid said. "I'm a Lambda class. Barely. You want to take me and who else now? Against a island populated by Epsilons and up?"
"First of all," Mike said, sitting in one of the chairs. He waved at the others to find a seat, paused as he plucked a cigarette out of the air. "First of all, I'm hoping to avoid any real fighting. Honestly, this is really more a courtesy call than anything else. If I wanted to, I could pop in there, grab Grace and Tiffany, pop back, all by myself and there wouldn't be a damn thing Sol or any other Protector could do about it. Okay?" He looked sternly around the table. "The reason I'm NOT doing that is it won't solve the real issue. Which is that Sol has a beef with me. I'm betting it's because I've been training you guys and he somehow found out, and he's freaking out over it.
"Now, there's a possibility -- a very low one, I'm afraid -- that Sol's not gone totally bugfuck, and I can reason with him. Then we all walk out of there friends and everyone goes home happy. That future does exist. Unfortunately, it was so hard for me to find that future it may as well be wishful thinking, so I'm bringing you lot in.
"Here's the deal: Jon needs to be there because of his wife. I need Chris because through CAM he provides a link back here. That way everyone who stays home knows what's going on. I need you along because, frankly, you're one of the only other people I can count on who has long-range energy powers. Most of my contacts are either a little more hands-on, or they're psions, and I'm not handing Sol any more psions.
"Plus, Sid -- your particular abilities might prove essential."
"Wait," Jonothan said. "That's right, Mike said you were a Lambda Three! That's not public knowledge -- I didn't even know that."
Sid grimaced. "I'm not a real fan of my ability," he said. "It's not something I advertise particularly. But I can generate electricity."
Jonothan looked at him, then at Mike. "So this helps in not fighting, Mike?"
"It might," Mike said, blowing smoke rings. "Look, I've scanned the probability lines as thoroughly and as far as I could, okay. I'm trying to cover all the contingencies I can see."
"But you can't see everything," Renee said, startling Jonothan. The wild-haired woman was sitting on a bench a few yards away, her back to the group. She had her tarot cards laid out on the bench in front of her.
"No," Mike responded.
"Nor can I," she said, speaking so low Jonothan could barely hear her. She looked over her shoulder at those sitting around the table. Her eyes were glowing green. "Mike, the Tower keeps coming up. I don't think it's going to happen to Sol. Something bad is going to happen to you. That's why you can't see it. Why none of us can."
Sid scoffed. "That doesn't make any sense. You can't see the future if something bad happens? I thought you guys did that all the time."
Mike stubbed out his cigarette and said soberly, "Certain events affect the ability. It's kind of hard to explain. Precognition is the bitchiest talent to handle, because there are so many variables."
"Not psychometry, Mike?" Celeste asked wryly. Mike waved her off, but she kept talking. "Listen, why don't you add Yencid to your little guerilla force? He wants to help."
"Hacker?" Mike said. "How's he going to help? We've got a ride and we don't need a cyberjockey."
From behind Celeste, the silvery shape of her craft flowed rapidly into a humanoid form, a few inches shorter than Celeste. It spoke: "Hola Mike."
Mike sat up. "Yencid? You've learned to shape shift that body?"
The silvery form nodded its featureless head. "The symbship was designed to be malleable."
Jonothan looked at Sid, who stared blankly back at him. The rocker mouthed, Too much bloody back story. Jonothan startled everyone by bursting out laughing. They stared at him, but he waved them off, shaking his head. Sid shrugged and said something to Renee. Jonothan wasn't listening. His breathing was coming in irregular snorts; he didn't know if he was laughing or crying. He tried to subdue himself, but he could tell he was skating perilously close to hysteria. I need to let it out, like Willow said, he thought.
You have a couple hours to try, Mike sent. It's still going to be a long trip.
Damn it, he thought back, glaring at Mike. Can't a man have privacy in his own skull around here?
Mike met his gaze, and although he looked young enough to be Renee's son rather than her brother, his eyes looked ancient. Ancient and tired. I'm sorry, Jonothan, he sent. But I've been monitoring you all afternoon. Willow was right, I can't have you cracking up at a bad time. For my sake -- and for Tiffany's.
Can't you, like, give me a psychic Prozac or something? I can't handle this shit like the old days, Mike. I'm not a Hero anymore; I'm a middle-aged dad.
Mike closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. It's really not that simple, Jonothan. I can force changes on you, sure, but that whole "mental domination" thing is pretty dangerous. I avoid that shit with enemies, much less friends.
"I just want to stay calm," Jonothan burst out, leaping to his feet. His Rift fluttered on his chest, responding to his agitation. All other conversation ceased. Everyone was staring at him. "I need to set these emotions aside, Mike, just for tonight, until this is over. You can do that for me!"
Mike remained seated, looked up at Jonothan wearily. "It's not that simple, Jon. The emotions would still be there, just bottled tighter. Why do you think people on anti-depressants sometimes blow up so drastically? Because eventually those emotions can't be contained anymore, and they'll come out any way they can find. The smallest damn thing could set you off."
"But I'm talking for one night, man," Jonothan protested. "A few hours, not days or months!"
Now Mike stood, leveling his blue eyes with Jonothan's brown. "My power is stronger than any drug, Jonothan. You need to know what you're asking for here. If I shut down your emotions, they could stay shut down a lot harder and for a lot longer. It won't wear off. You'll just go insane, unless I'm able to reverse it. And that's if I even can reverse it; these things, sometimes they take a little too well."
Jonothan was crying now. "I've got faith in you, man. But I can't focus right now, and Tiffany needs me. Please, I'm going crazy here."
"No," Mike said flatly. "There's nothing wrong with your emotions under the circumstances, Jonothan. It hurts when someone you love is taken from you. Feeling nothing, that would be crazy. Bottling it up, that would be crazy."
"Oh," Jonothan said, shouting again. "So it's okay for you, and not for me, huh?" The Rift flared again under his shirt, casting shifting shadows in the growing gloom. "Willow told me you've been shutting your friends out, Mike. That you've been hiding what you're going through. So why is it okay for YOU to suppress your emotions and not me, huh? Tell me that!"
"It's different for me."
"How different could it possibly fucking BE?"
They stared at each other for several seconds, Jonothan glaring through his tears, Mike apparently impassive. No one else spoke. No one else moved.
Then Mike said: "When you can kill with a thought, Jonothan, you learn to be careful what you think." He grimaced, and his eyes flared blue for an instant. "Fine, you got what you wanted. On your head be it."
Jonothan blinked as Mike strode away. He wiped his face, noticed that he no longer felt like crying, no longer felt angry. His tensed muscles were relaxing. "Hmph," he said, but even surprise was beyond him. "Interesting."
Sid looked at him, looked at Mike's departing figure. "Well," he said. "That was dramatic."
Jonothan opened his mouth to reply, but Mike's telepathic message cut him off: Get on board. We're leaving. Now.
No comments:
Post a Comment