Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (56 page)

Molech said nothing. His muscles were flexing, veins popping, trying to move the frozen machinery in his joints. At best, he could just wiggle his shoulders slightly.

Zoey continued, “And then some cohort of yours, some 'roided up lizard brain who's sitting on his sofa right now cleaning his guns, he sees that video and he comes to get payback. And then the whole thing starts all over. Forever and ever, blood on top of blood, until somebody finally takes a breath and decides to just … let it go.”

There was a ruckus behind Molech as Andre stumbled through the hole in the wall, eyes wide, trying to make sense of the bizarre, frozen standoff taking place between Zoey and the array of shirtless men menacing her. Echo popped through immediately after, but there was no moment of confusion on her part. She saw the injured Zoey and flew toward her, actually skidding the last few steps, sliding on the tile floor and gracefully ending up in a kneeling position next to Zoey. The bitch trying to upstage her.

Echo said, “We have to get a splint on this—”

Zoey waved her off. “All right,” Zoey said to the frozen Molech, “we've got a brief window of privacy before the audience joins back in. Here's what's going to happen. Those dumb people in the van are going to pile through that hole in the wall at any moment. At that point, you can surrender and apologize, or threaten them and get shot with arrows. But it's your call. Each of you. Stand down and live, or go out in a blaze of supervillain glory. I don't care either way. I'm going to pass out now.”

Zoey lay back, wondering who all had been watching this ordeal. Her mother? Caleb? Bella? Carla Dubois, the slut who had stolen her boyfriend in eighth grade? Stench Machine sauntered up, sniffed her mutilated leg, and curled up and went to sleep at her hip.

As she slipped out of consciousness, Zoey heard the faint sound of shouted warnings, angry threats in reply, and primitive weapons impaling flesh. The last thing she heard was Black Scott saying, “Nah, man, I don't even know these assholes.”

 

SIXTY-NINE

The cast on Zoey's leg was always gently vibrating, something about using ultrasound to stimulate the growth of bone tissue, they'd said. It was barely noticeable unless you laid your hand right against the cast, but the effect was still maddening. The leg had needed one six-hour surgery, her rib another. But her face and teeth had needed three times as much work—everything from the neck up was bandages or purple bruises. But at least her face wouldn't require six weeks of physical therapy, as she was told the leg would.

She was doing her recuperating at the Casa De Zoey. They had turned one of the guest rooms into a hospital room—complete with adjustable bed, monitoring equipment, and a handsome around-the-clock nurse named Abel. Which wasn't as sexy as it sounds, considering he had to help her to the toilet six times a day.

Otherwise, Zoey was keeping to her New Year's Day tradition of watching nine straight hours of basketball. It was the third quarter of the first game of the triple-header, Zoey's Denver Nuggets on the road versus the Chicago Bulls. Andre was in a chair next to her, his feet propped up on her bed. Andre was eating a burger Carlton had made for him, one whose bun was somehow constructed of two flat lumps of fried macaroni and cheese. Zoey, fresh off of two rounds of oral surgery, was on an all-liquid diet, and had somehow gained three pounds as a result. Right now the liquid was some Russian imported beer Andre had brought with him.

Andre nodded to the wall to his left and said, “Oughta have that framed.”

He was referring to a six-foot-wide stretch of white butcher paper that had been thumbtacked to the wall, covered in doodles and notes in Zoey's handwriting. Much of it was illegible, and one corner was obscured by a dried coffee stain. But in the middle was a clear to-do list under the scrawled heading “
OPERATION Z-DAY
.”

With virtually no explanation other than crude stick figure drawings next to each, the list went:

• TACO STORM?

•
FAKE ALIEN INVASION
? NUCLEAR BOMB?

• ECHO HACKS AND/OR SEDUCES SOMETHING

• DEFACE THE FIRE AND ICE (DONGS?)

• CATS CATS CATS

• GET MOLECH BACK HERE (FART RAY?)

• WILL WORKS HIS MAGIC (LIKE IN “THE RINGMASTER”)

It was her initial notes from the hours-long planning session the night before the Solstice, Zoey sketching it out on her knees on the floor of the ballroom.

She grunted. “Somebody should have taken the Sharpie away from me.”

“What are you talkin' about? Your part worked perfectly, it didn't fall apart until we got to Will's bit. Though all agree that my performance as Arthur Livingston's voice was perfection itself.”

“
We could have gotten everyone killed
. None of it played out the way I pictured. It was like were trying to corral a rabid wolf that had wandered into a daycare. There was
so much
that could have gone wrong.”

Andre shrugged. “Eh, that's par for the course. This was actually one of the smoothest operations we've ever had.”

They sat and watched basketball for a moment, while Zoey let that sink in.

She took a drink and said, “When we started, Will asked me what Molech's weakness was, and that's all I could think of. He was a diva. It wasn't just that he couldn't stand to lose, he couldn't even
appear
to lose, not in front of a crowd. I figured a diva would rather die than be upstaged.”

“Like I said, should be framed for posterity.” Andre squinted at the screen. “I don't understand, why is it a foul to stand in the lane for three seconds?”

“You really know nothing about basketball?”

“I know the general idea. They get points for putting the ball through the hoop, right?”

“Don't mess with me, Andre, I'm on painkillers.”

“That's usually the perfect time to mess with somebody. Anyway I'm more of a hockey man myself. I mean, the fouls don't make any sense. Two dudes run into each other and half the time they call it on the guy with the ball and the other half of the time they call it the other way, there's no rhyme or reason.”

“Yeah, I admit that one is random.”

There was a knock at the door and Wu let himself in, carrying a bouquet of Get Well lilies in what looked like an antique vase.

Zoey said, “Ooh, who are those from?”

Wu said, “They are from me. The flowers are to get well, the vase is an apology, for what I did to your car. I actually did not know it was so valuable, I picked the one that seemed most capable of speed. The explosion was, in retrospect, probably an excessive touch driven more by ego than practicality. I do succumb to a flair for the dramatic, from time to time. I believe your people had rubbed off on me.”

Zoey said, “Well, it looked awesome, I'd say it was worth it. So I never asked, did you jump out at the last second, or what?”

“Uh, no. That is actually not possible without putting yourself in a wheelchair. Early in the pursuit we got stalled in traffic, and I ducked out of the vehicle and continued operating it remotely, from a nearby café. That was the reason for the fiery finale—I wanted to delay the time it would take them to realize that the interior of the car contained only marshmallow.”

“Contained
what
?”

“Oh. Well, I needed to put something in the passenger seat so it would appear you were with me, if we were captured on camera. I had no time to construct an accurate analog of your body, of course, so I found one of the marshmallow snowmen that had been stored in the garage, and dressed it in your denim jacket.”

Zoey stared hard at Andre and said, “Do
not
say what you're thinking right now.”

“You do
not
look like you're made of marshmallow, Zoey.”

“Exactly. You're employed another day.” She examined Wu's gift and said, “That vase is beautiful.”

The room was full of flowers, and Zoey was trying to figure out the minimum amount of time that would be polite to let them stay before having them cleared out—she hated the smell, they reminded her of funerals. But the vase with Wu's bouquet
was
cool—ancient-looking turquoise with threads of gold running through it.

Wu said, “They call it
kintsugi
. The pot is shattered, then carefully reassembled with a resin mixed with gold. It symbolizes how we must incorporate our wounds into who we are, rather than try to merely repair and forget them.”

“Wow. It's really pretty. And it looks like a pain in the ass to do, trying to remember where all the shards go.”

“It wasn't easy.”

There was another knock and Will Blackwater was at the door, carrying a small paper bag. It was like some announcement had gone out to have everyone converge in Zoey's room.

Will said to Andre, “You know Zoey's having to live off protein shakes because of her jaw, right? And you're making her watch you eat a macburger in front of her?”

“She said it was okay!”

“Right. So just the four divorces for you, then?”

Carlton appeared behind Will at the door, apparently having rushed to the scene of a bunch of guests who all might potentially need something to eat or drink. The room was suddenly crowded, all of these people looming over Zoey. You try to watch one basketball game and suddenly your room turns into Grand Central Station. Somebody's phone was ringing.

Wu sensed her discomfort, set down the vase and volunteered to go take up a post out in the hall. He assured Carlton that all was well, and guided him away.

It was Andre's phone that had sounded, and Zoey caught that the floating display said “
MELINDA
.”

Andre stood. “I've, uh, got to take this. It's a customer.”

“It's my mom, I can see it on the display. I don't want to talk about it. Go do whatever, you're fired from watching basketball anyway.”

He exited, shuffling past Will, leaving the two of them alone.

Zoey let out a grunt of relief. “Too many people. I get that many people squeezing around me in a room and I feel like—”

“Like you can't breathe?”

“Ugh. Exactly. I got a message from Echo saying her gift to me was that she wouldn't bother me for the duration of my recovery. It's the most thoughtful thing I've gotten so far.”

Will's bandages were visible under his hat, and Zoey could see where they'd had to shave that whole side of his head to operate.

She asked, “When did you get out? Didn't they have to put a metal plate in your head?”

“It's not as bad as it sounds.”

“Still, you had skull surgery and they let you out after a week?”

“I let myself out. No point in lying there on painkillers when I can be out getting work done, on painkillers. Speaking of which, are you supposed to be mixing yours with alcohol?”

“Whatever,
Dad
.”

“If I was your dad I'd be asking you to share. I heard back from the lawyer yesterday, the insurance company is going to fight you on the tower. They're saying this doesn't fall under the terrorism clause, they're calling it vandalism. Oh, and tomorrow the League of Badass are having their ceremony at the White House. Where they're being honored. For single-handedly saving the city.”

On the TV, the seven-foot-five center for the Denver Nuggets pulled up and took an improbable three-pointer from around half court. Nothing but net. Will groaned.

Zoey said, “What, are you a Bulls fan?”

“No, I have money on the Nuggets. But I cringe when McClaren hits a three because—”

“Because now he's going to take five more, and miss them all.”

“Right, he's fooled himself into thinking he can make that shot.”

Zoey said, “Hot damn, have a seat. You're now my basketball-watching partner.”

“I really can't, I have work I need to—”

“
You work for me
, and I'm assigning you the task of watching a bunch of New Year's basketball with me. I had Andre in that position but he failed miserably and was demoted to having sex with my mom.”

Will paused long enough to demonstrate he was trying to think of an excuse, and then relented and took Andre's seat.

Zoey said, “I figured we'd be under martial law by now. Like the government would send in the army to make us all behave.”

“The government is more than happy to cover up the fact that their weapons systems are now useless in the face of arms you can buy off the street. There are about four different insurgencies in the world who'd love to know that.”

“I guess what I'm asking is … how long can Tabula Rasa be allowed to stay like this? The government isn't going to let things stay crazypants here forever.”

“Well, there are thousands and thousands of wealthy political donors in this city telling them to keep their noses out—Tabula Rasa has a hundred and twenty billionaires, at last count. But no, they won't let it stay lawless forever. A city full of thriving black markets means there's a whole lot of taxes that aren't being collected. Oh, nice defense,
Raj
.”

“He pouts when he doesn't get the ball.” Zoey nodded toward Will's brown paper bag. “What's in the bag? Liquor?”

“Oh, right.” He dumped the contents of the bag into his hand—a green rubber mouse. “It's an old cat toy. My wife used to have a cat. It has catnip inside it. I don't have the cat any more but then I thought I remembered you had a cat of some kind.”

Zoey took it. The mouse smelled like new rubber, it was clearly just off the shelf. So Will had bought it, took it out of the package, put it in a different bag, and then claimed he had just found it, so she wouldn't know he had made a special trip to buy her cat a toy. Zoey thought the best gift she could get Will was years of therapy.