Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (33 page)

Joy laughs. “Yeah? You think
so? I saw it in your eyes last time we threw down. There’s something going on
in there,” Joy says, tapping Missy on the forehead. “You kept it caged up, but
I know it’s there. You’re just as monkeyhouse nuts as the rest of us, cupcake,
and the sooner you admit it —”

“I am not crazy,” Missy
insists. “I was demonically possessed once and it tainted my soul and sometimes
I lose control but I’m working on it, but that’s totally different than being
crazy. Totally.”

“Right. Whatever helps you
sleep at night. What’s it going to be? You walking out with us, or are you
joining Daddy for Take Your Daughter to the Morgue Day?”

“...I need to think about
it.”

“Two minutes,” Joy says,
withdrawing to the edge of the stage.

“You were...demonically
possessed?” Dr. Hamill says.

“Once,” Missy says. “For a
few minutes. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“I don’t believe there’s
going to be a later...not for me, certainly.” Dr. Hamill shakes his head. “It’s
no less than I deserve. What I did to you is unforgiveable.”

“Daddy...”

“Let me speak. Please.”
Missy nods. “I love you, Missy. I never said that as often as I should have. I
never treated you the way such a wonderful child as you deserved to be treated.
I’ve committed so many sins in my life but my sins against you are the worst,
and I’d give all that I had for one more chance to make things right between
us.”

“Aww, that is so friggin’
touching,” Joy smirks, thumping her chest. “Gets me right here. What, you think
some pathetic deathbed confession is going to get you off the hook? Yeah,
you’re right, doc, you screwed a lot of people, but you screwed your little
girl worst of all, so you go ahead,” she says, turning to Missy. “You tell him
exactly what you think of him. You tell him that he’s a bigger monster than all
of us put together.”

“My father is not a monster.
Neither am I. Neither are you. Neither are any of you,” Missy says, shouting
past Joy. “None of you are monsters.”

Dr. Hamill smiles for his
brave, compassionate little girl and he silently thanks God, because he can
think of no better sight to take with him into the next world.

Missy gives him something
better anyway.

“Bunch of whiny drama queens
is what you are.
Whah whah whah,
the mean old scientist man made us monsters,
we’re so damaged, nothing’s our fault, we can’t help being crazy,” Missy
taunts. “Please.
You’re
the reason you’re a mess,
Joyce
— not my
father,
you
. Your life sucks because
you
suck, so why don’t you
stop acting like a ginormous loser and stop blaming everyone else for your own
stupid decisions?”

“SHUT UP!” Joy bellows.
“Shut your damn mouth or I swear to God I’ll —!”

“What? Kill me?
Pft
.
Whatever. You’re not scary, you know. You’re not scary, you’re not intimidating
— you know what else you’re not? Smart.” Missy grins. “A smart person would’ve
realized, like, ten minutes ago I’m totally distracting you.”

And that is what we in the
super-hero business call an opening.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I’d never call Missy a
coward. I’d never question her bravery or say she was less of a hero than any
of us, but the way she kept her head together is nothing short of epic.

The minute she regained
consciousness, Missy put out a telepathic distress call to Sara, then relayed
to us intel on her location as she learned it. From that, Matt was able to
puzzle out Joy’s makeshift hideout: The Kingsport Center for the Performing
Arts. The ambitious project to construct a community concert hall and theater
fell apart late last year when critical state funding dried up. The husk of the
complex sits in northeastern Kingsport, off a secondary road on a moderately
wooded property, practically invisible to passers-by. Even the cops sometimes
forget it’s there.

While we were en route,
Missy kept feeding us info on the layout of the auditorium, how many hostiles
we’d be facing — everything we’d need for a quick takedown.

In theory. With Missy
incapacitated the raw numbers aren’t in our favor, and Joy’s crew has certain
advantages: They’re unpredictable, willing to kill, and will be fighting their
way out of a corner. They have nothing left to lose but their freedom, and no
one gives that up without a hell of a fight (except maybe me, but that’s beside
the point).

What do we have? Experience,
loyalty to one another, a just cause and, thanks to Sara repeating that cool
trick she used to sneak us into the hospital, the element of surprise. Buzzkill
Joy has no idea we’re standing ten feet away from her, not until Sara drops her
telepathic camouflage and nails the little psycho with a telekinetic force
blast. Let me tell you, the only thing more satisfying than watching Joy hurtle
the length of the auditorium is the solid thud she makes when she smacks
face-first into the back wall.

Our shock-and-awe tactic
fails to fluster Joy’s crew. They retaliate immediately, no hesitation
whatsoever. The big guy, the one Joy called Kurt, is on the stage in a flash,
followed by Ivy, who throws a little shock and awe back in our faces when she
tackles Stuart and drives him through —
through
the stage floor.

The crack of hardwood planks
shattering sounds a lot like the starting gun for the All Hell Breaks Loose 5K.

Matt whips out a cricket bat
and starts swinging, while I get ready to zap anyone dumb enough to give me a
clear shot (the auditorium may have a nice high ceiling, but I’m no good in the
air unless I have open sky to work in. Something to correct later). The boy
Missy dubbed Bug-eyes bounces toward us like a turbo-charged kangaroo, easily
clearing the distance between the row of seats and the stage, while the girl
built like a drinking straw, Skinny, skitters towards us on all fours. Both of
them are moving fast, too fast for me to get a bead on them, yet neither of
them comes at us. Instead, they try to circle around to attack our rear — or to
take out Missy and Dr. Hamill, who are still trussed up and helpless.

Stuart was supposed to free
them but, as the saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy — which
is why you have a back-up plan. In this case, Sara is our Plan B. She spins,
tracking Bug-eyes and Skinny, and takes them out with a double telekinetic slam
as they move in for the kill. Once they’re out of the way, Sara turns her power
on the chain wrapped around Missy’s wrists and ankles. Missy scrambles to her
feet, slices through her father’s bonds, and the two of them join us in what
becomes a defensive circle.

Kurt and his remaining three
allies counter our positions, a rather lame attempt at surrounding us. Kurt
growls, a low rumble of distant thunder, and bares his teeth at us. This
prompts similar displays from his buddies, who put on their best fight faces,
assume aggressive stances, and give us little displays of their abilities.
Isaac rises a foot off the stage. Twitchy, a.k.a. Wyatt, emits a buzzing,
crackling sound that reminds me of a bug zapper, and pure white fire engulfs
Flamey’s hands (gee, big surprise there).

“Not bad,” I say. “Squad,
let’s show them what we bring to the party.”

(I know, it’s a cheesy line,
but that’s showbiz.)

To my left, Matt channels
his inner Neo and pulls out of his trench coat a pair of unnervingly realistic
machine pistols. To my right, Sara grabs some debris off the stage and aims
jagged chunks of hardwood at Twitchy. Behind me, Missy returns Kurt’s
animalistic snarling with a sharp hiss. Me, I crank my aura up to eleven and
rise off the stage, matching Isaac’s altitude.

Their bravado falters.

That’s right, we’re bad.

Two things happen then,
almost simultaneously, causing our Mexican standoff to careen right back into
total chaos. A screech of rage precedes Buzzkill Joy’s return to the fight and,
thank God, gives Missy the split-second warning she needs to duck under a
vicious swipe that could have torn her face off. A heartbeat later, the stage
behind me explodes and Stuart arcs through the air. He crashes to the theater
floor, his landing leaving a shallow crater in the concrete. I catch a glimpse
of Ivy leaping up through the hole, putting the numbers back in favor of Team
Bad Guy, if barely.

It doesn’t last long.
Twitchy lunges for Matt, who spins out of the way like a matador dodging a
charging bull. Twitchy crashes into Flamey, who goes rigid and screams through
clenched teeth as (best guess here) Twitchy makes like a human bug zapper and
stuns his teammate with an electrical shock. Matt follows up by unloading his
guns into Twitchy’s back.

“OH MY GOD!” I squeal.
“Those are real guns?!”

“Yeah! Loaded with hornet
rounds,” Matt says. “Those suckers work, trust me.”

Hornet rounds? That’s only slightly
comforting. Matt’s never been a gun guy, and I seriously do not like the
thought of him getting a taste for it.

Add it to the list of
problems for another day, Carrie, because now we’re down to the toughest and
most dangerous members of Team Bad Guy — also the smartest, because Joy,
sensing the tide has turned against her but good, shouts over the din to “screw
this noise” (paraphrasing; her version is more R-rated).

“Every man for himself!” she
cries, bolting for the back entrances. Kurt, Ivy, and Isaac take the hint and
chase after her.

“Psyche, stay here, you’re
on prison guard duty,” I say, and she nods in acknowledgement. I hate to bench
Sara like this, but she’s been pushing hard and looks like she’s about to
faint.

The rest of the team falls in
behind me, but we refrain from following Team Bad Guy all the way out of the
building. We don’t want to get caught in any crossfire.

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention
that, didn’t I? Obviously I flew here, but the rest of the team had to hitch a
ride. Fortunately, the Kingsport Police Department’s Special Response Team was
more than happy to give them a lift in their heavily armored mobile
headquarters.

We hang back as Team Bad Guy
crosses the building’s foyer, a space designed to hold an entire audience awaiting
entrance into the auditorium, and bursts through the front doors, only to
freeze in place as a powerful spotlight flares to life. For a moment, before my
eyes adjust, I see their harsh, crisp silhouettes against a backdrop of pure
white. My vision shifts, bringing every detail into perfect focus. A line of a
dozen or so cops, laden with military-grade body armor, brace their automatic
rifles against their shoulders and order Team Bad Guy to freeze, get down on
the ground, put your hands behind your heads. Red threads of light cross the
distance between the cops’ weapons and Joy’s crew, sending a clear message: Do
not resist, do not try to escape, do as you’re told and you will not be cut
down in a hail of flying molten lead.

The fatal flaw in that
scenario: Ivy doesn’t sweat pesky little things like bullets. She charges the
officers, bellowing a challenge. The cops’ laser sights converge on Ivy. There
is no final warning. They open fire.

Ivy plunges headlong into
the barrage, the bullets THWMP THWMP THWMPing off her body. Contrary to popular
belief, bullets do not make a sharp PTWANG! noise when they strike invulnerable
skin (it’s
skin
, people, not steel). They also do not ricochet more than
a few inches, but Joy, Kurt, and Isaac aren’t taking any chances when they make
their breaks for freedom. Joy darts to the right, Kurt to the left, Isaac goes
up.

No sooner do they split than
the roar of gunfire peters out and is replaced by shouts and screams.

We rush outside. I don’t
have to tell the others who their targets are. They know their jobs.

Of all of us, I have the
easiest time of things. Isaac rockets straight up in a blind panic, oblivious
to my presence. I tag him with a relatively gentle force blast. He spins out of
control, stalls out, then starts to fall. I grab him by the belt and he hangs
there, completely limp. I descend and touch down at the edge of the main
parking lot, which has become a gladiatorial arena for Stuart and Ivy.

The cops who are still on
their feet drag their unconscious (God, I hope they’re just unconscious)
comrades clear of the mayhem — not that said mayhem is contained to one spot.
Ivy throws wild haymakers that bat Stuart around like a hockey puck, and for
some reason he isn’t swinging back.

Ivy senses his reluctance to
fight and cranks up the violence. A kick to the chest throws Stuart across the
lot. He rolls to a stop at my feet, sighs, and looks up at me.

“Hey. Question,” he says.
“If I punch her, am I, like, a huge ass for hitting a girl, or am I all
enlightened and stuff because I don’t see gender when I’m fighting a bad guy?”

“On behalf of women
everywhere, I give you permission to cave her face in,” I say.

“Cool. Thanks.”

Ivy goes down on the first
punch.

Soon after the Archimedes
case, Matt designed for himself a training regimen to whip him into proper
shape for life as a super-hero. His gloves were great tools, but he knew that
success or failure ultimately rested on how sound his mind and body were. He wakes
up early every morning to work out at the gym down the road from his house, and
most mornings he runs to school rather than walking or taking the bus. The last
time he clocked himself, he covered the two miles’ worth of woodland paths
between home and school in fifteen minutes.

Judging by how quickly Kurt
is pulling away, Matt guesses he could cover two miles in half the time.

Matt brings his pistols up
and fires. He doesn’t expect to hit his fleeing target, given that his
practical experience with firearms is limited to the occasional game of laser
tag or paintball with Stuart, and in this he is not disappointed; the hornet
rounds fly wild. Kurt, startled by the burst of gunfire, stumbles — the true
intended effect.

Matt drops the guns, closes
the distance, and flings himself at Kurt’s exposed back, leading with the point
of his elbow. His aim is high and, instead of connecting with the base of
Kurt’s skull, Matt’s elbow glances off the scalp — painful, but not the
knockout move he’d hoped for.

The pain galvanizes Kurt,
bringing his senses into razor-sharp focus. Matt blocks a series of roundhouse
punches that land with punishing force. A punch to the gut lifts him off his
feet, leaving him vulnerable to a stiff fist to the face. His mask does little
to brunt the impact; red-hot pain splashes across Matt’s face. He falls to his
knees, head spinning. Kurt advances slowly, deliberately, lips curled away to
expose canines ending in wicked points.

When your life is on the
line, there is no such thing as dirty fighting.

Matt’s uppercut finds its
target between Kurt’s legs. Kurt yelps, a high-pitched bark of sudden agony,
and he doubles over, slowly, as if deflating. Matt jumps to his feet and, as he
rises, snakes an arm around Kurt’s neck.

A concussion for sure, maybe
a skull fracture, probably a neck wrenched so badly it will need a brace for
two months.

Matt cinches the headlock
in, shifts his weight, and throws his feet up.

Without a headset of her own,
I’m forced to locate Missy visually. Not the easiest thing in the world, to put
it mildly. I’m far enough above the ground that I can see everything for a few
miles in any direction, but I lose all the telling details I need to pick out
Missy from the many other dots moving around beneath me.

Sara, I need some help,
I say.
I don’t see Missy
or Joy
.

Hold on,
Sara says. Man, even her
telepathic voice sounds exhausted.
Got her. She’s chasing Joy into a
shopping center or something.

That would be Kingsport
Commons, a high-end open-air mall a mile away from the performing arts center.
I swoop down and immediately get a sense of Missy and Joy’s general path when I
spot a small pile-up of cars near the Commons’ east entrance — the kind of
accident that might result from two girls dashing recklessly through late
afternoon traffic.

The trail stays warm as I
fly low through the Commons: A person knocked to the ground here, a group of
shoppers cowering in a doorway there. I catch up to them as Joy hits an
intersection, and in turn is nearly hit by a car as it prepares to blow through
a stop sign (that’s a Massachusetts driver for you). Joy skids to a halt before
plowing into the car’s front fender, and wastes precious seconds slamming her
fists on the hood and cursing out the driver.