Stories for Chip (19 page)

He cast Thea a quick smile as he began serving a large family gathering.

Since neither Cham nor Diep were out front at the register, Thea crossed the room to sit at a table by the kitchen door and watch Simon work. His skin was dark—almost bronze—and while he was slight of frame, he had an unobtrusive fighter's musculature that made him look carved from wood.

◊

Thea and Simon first met after the Olive Way Massacre, when most of Seattle still seemed asleep on their feet, trying to drag themselves out of a terrible nightmare. People tended to lose track of their words, trailing off in the middle of sentences, or to stop on the sidewalk, staring up into the sky as if some vision there could make sense of what had happened. Thea felt a pang of guilt every time she saw someone struggling that way: After all, it was she, as Brass Monkey, who had seized their minds and drawn them to aid her in her battle against the King of Cats.

Simon, though, was one of the few who'd escaped the Call's effects. He'd strolled into Coffee Messiah and ordered a soy mocha latte, and though they exchanged not a word, the grin he gave Thea as she handed him his drink made her heart skip in her chest. He'd started coming in every day after that, and whether he bought a drink or not, he always tipped Thea at least five dollars. Finally, Thea had asked him out dancing, and they'd spent a sweaty Friday night writhing together at a Belltown club.

She would have gone home with him. She'd wanted desperately to go home with him, but the noise of twisting metal and shattering glass from the street outside had told her she had work to do. An awful roar rolled through the city and the techno beat stuttered to a halt: A Chinese dragon had tossed a city bus into Key Arena.

Cursing her luck, Thea headed for coat check to grab her satchel and her Mask.

◊

Simon cast a smile at Thea over his shoulder, and when he'd finished serving his table, he crossed to join her.

“Hey, Lovely. What brings you by today?”

Thea blushed and looked away. “Well, I came to see you.”

When she glanced back at him his smile had become a grin. “Oh, yeah?”

“Listen,” Thea said. “I'm sorry about Tuesday night. Something came up.”

Simon's expression darkened slightly. “Yeah, I—It was a bad night for me, too. But you called, so…so no big deal.”

“Really?”

“All will be forgiven you if you come to the park with me this afternoon.”

“I…can do that,” Thea said. “Two o'clock?” That would give her time to get home and change.

“Two is good. Meet me at my place and I'll drive. Have you eaten?”

◊

The sky was unusually bright as Thea stepped from her bus onto Broadway. She tried not to dwell on her past, but more and more these days, she found herself wondering how her life had led her to this moment or that one, and now she considered Seattle and how she'd come here.

She remembered her bedroom at the Academy. Its rock show fliers, Japanese lanterns, and paper parasols. The East window offered a beautiful view of Silver Spring, and on a clear day, one might even catch the glint of the Potomac winding away in the distance. Thea had graduated high school by then, but she and her classmates had yet to complete their exit exams. Thea had taken to sneaking out at night as Brass Monkey, patrolling DC and Silver Spring. Sometimes she even went as far as Baltimore, quietly spotting and stopping trouble before it could start.

But then, Moloch.

The news footage made him look like a robot. He wore a suit of rusty, cobbled-together armor, ambient energy glowing through its chinks. He descended from the sky to the shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, and banged his fists on the ground to set off an earthquake that rocked the Eastern Seaboard.

Everyone who could have handled him was either offworld at the time or tending to crises elsewhere on the planet, so Mr. Clown had streaked off to deal with Moloch on his own.

Thea and the other students watched on CNN as a swath of black lightning split the sky and hit Moloch head-on.

“He's using a lot of juice,” Sakyo said.

“It's broad daylight,” Thea said. “He's got to end it fast.”

“Oh,” Sakyo said softly. The fight had moved several yards away, but the camera crew had followed. When they got him inside the frame, Clown looked the worse for wear. He drew back his fist and rammed it with a crack into Moloch's chest, but his movements looked all wrong. He seemed drunk, almost, swaying on his feet.

Now Thea saw why: Moving almost too quickly to track, Moloch rushed Clown, grabbed him, and held him close, sucking the darkness right out of him. As they watched, Clown powered down until he was only John, a thin, freakishly tall man with long black hair and nut-brown skin.

John's knees buckled as Moloch let him go. He spilled to the ground, and Moloch whirled to face the camera.

People of Earth,
he said—His voice was a fuzzed-out electronic growl—
This day belongs to Moloch. Bring me your children; I hunger for their flesh!

◊

Thea unlocked her apartment's front door and threw it closed as she ran for the bedroom with her satchel. She heard the television on and knew that Barong Ket had spent the morning watching cartoons.

She knelt on the floor to pull a metal steamer trunk from underneath the bed and sighed softly as the smell of polished candlenut breathed its way into the room. She pulled the Mask from her satchel and held it for a moment, examining its contours as she would have a reflection of her own face.

Stay home.

“What?” Thea said. “Why?”

She put the Mask away and turned to see Barong Ket crouching on the hardwood floor outside the bedroom. In his left hand, he gripped an apple the way a man would grip a bowling ball. He scratched his beard and grunted, then turned to lope away, his tail bobbing behind him.

Thea rolled to her feet and followed the monkey into the living room. “Since when do you order me around? Why should I stay home?”

Barong Ket looked over his shoulder at her, then turned away again, scratching his beard.

“Speak,”
Thea commanded.

Barong Ket shivered, helpless to obey.
Bad things today,
he chittered.
Bad! Stay home!

“Oh, I know what this is,” Thea said. “You've been acting like this ever since I started seeing Simon.”

Now Ket turned.
Thea have duty,
he said, speaking with exaggerated calm.

“And I fulfill it!” Thea argued. “I protect the city. I defend its people from their natural predators. Why can't I have someone?”

Thea can…. Just not him.

“Gods! Look, I know you like Sakyo. I like him, too! But he's all banged-up and crazy inside—!”

Like Thea!

“But he's too much like me. I need someone normal to remind me what I'm fighting for.” She paused for a beat. Then, “But you know what? I'm not going to argue this with you. In fact,
I hereby forbid you to speak on this subject.
”

First Thea say, “speak,” then Thea say “no speak”. What Thea want, really?

◊

Thea bit her palm and brooded all through the bus ride to Wallingford. She shouldn't have treated Ket so harshly, but her relationship with Sakyo was a sore spot. Ever since Sakyo arrived at the Academy, everyone assumed some special connection between him and Thea. At first, Thea thought it was because they were both Asian, but over time she'd come to believe it was more than that.

In fact, the first thing Clown had asked her when Thea told him she was leaving the Academy for good was whether she intended to take Sakyo with her.

Certain they'd be grounded for life, Thea and the other students had suited up and rushed in to save Clown from Moloch. Jawal—Heat Boy—had acted as field leader, flying recon and drawing the fire from Moloch's belly to feed his own flame. Monkey had slipped in to spirit John to safety, and the other kids launched a coordinated attack, pinning Moloch in place with zero point energy, dropping cars on him from a mile up, and frying him with thunderbolts. By the time they were finished, his armor had fused together, and the light inside it had died away.

Thea remembered looking on from where she rode shotgun in Brass Monkey's mind as Monkey cradled John's broken body in her arms. “Give me a sitrep,” John said. “I need a sitrep. Casualties. What are the numbers?”

“Numbers fine,” Monkey said. “John okay. Everybody okay.”

“Ruh—Really?”

◊

Simon buzzed Thea in and she jogged up the stairs to his apartment. It was a clean little studio chock full of books and model airplanes. The only bit of mess was the unmade bed.

The bathroom door was open and Simon stood shirtless before the mirror, brushing his teeth. Thea sat on the bed and watched his shoulders. He turned to say hello, but his mouth was full, so he had to turn away again and spit first. “I should have just driven over to get you.”

“I wanted to come here,” Thea said. “I've only been twice.”

“Well, sure,” he said. “I just thought—I mean—I don't want you to think I'm trying to get you into bed.”

“You're not trying to get me into bed?”

Simon opened his mouth and closed it again with a snap. His complexion almost hid his blush.

“Are we really going to the park?” Thea said.

Simon just watched her.

“…Because we don't have to if you don't want to. We could just…you know…stay here.”

◊

Thea prayed for three days straight after the Moloch Incident. By the time she emerged from her bedroom suite, she felt she had an answer, but uncertainty burned in the pit of her belly.

The Incident had taken place on a Wednesday, and by that Friday, John's god had healed him completely. Still, Dr. Claytor had ordered a weekend of bed rest, so Thea went up to see John in his rooms.

John's bedroom smelled of old stone. Though it was fifty stories above the ground, his suite seemed somehow subterranean. John had blacked the bedroom windows to keep out the sun and now he lay shirtless, wearing a pair of his girlfriend's bug-eye sunglasses. Something about the way his eyes shone through the tint made Thea a little nervous.

She sat on the edge of the bed, and, without speaking, John reached for her hand, gave it a squeeze. He held it after that, and his touch was cool and dry.

“I'm glad you're okay,” Thea said. “I saw Monkey holding you, and your heartbeat didn't sound good.”

“You steadied me, I think,” he said, almost whispering. “Without you, I might have died.”

They sat in silence for a space.

“So what now?” Thea asked. “What about the Program?”

He made a sound almost like a laugh and coughed hard. “All of you graduated. Passed with flying colors,” he said. “I get choked-up just thinking about it. You—so many could have died.”

“Clown. John. You've been good to me. To all of us.”

“Aw. Can this—? Can this wait?”

“No,” Thea said. “Do you know where I've been?”

He didn't seem to know how to answer.

“You know what it's like to have a Calling,” Thea said.

“Don't be hasty.”

Thea looked at him over her shoulder until he looked away.

“Will you take Sakyo with you?”

“He wouldn't go if I tried.”

“Don't kid yourself,” John said.

“Don't—don't distract me with your Clown bullshit, okay? That's not fair.” She paused, gathering breath. “Okay. All right. Um. I'm sorry, but—but there's one other thing. John…” Thea turned her body to look at him fully. “I have to be strong in this. I have to—I don't—Don't come to me out there.”

“Thea.”

“I mean it. The others are welcome, but not you.”

Without warning, John began to sob.

Seeing him weep this way filled her with a mixture of revulsion and guilt. She stared at him for a beat, stunned, and he made no effort to hide his tears. Finally, Thea opened her arms and he crawled to her.

◊

Darkness had crept into the apartment. Situated as it was, it got little light on even the brightest days; night came to it a full half hour before it flooded the rest of the city.

After screwing like beasts the first time, then making slow quiet love the second, Thea and Simon lay in bed holding hands, staring at the ceiling. From time to time, Thea would close her eyes and watch colored whorls dance on the inside of their lids as she listened to Simon's breath.

“I like the way you smell in the dark,” he said.

“I smell like fucking.”

“Not that,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I mean the you-smell. The part that's just you, underneath perfume, even. You smell like good incense and like metal.”

“I do not,” Thea said, touched in spite of herself.

“I don't need to know why you leave the way you do or why you stand me up sometimes. Not as long as you don't lie to me.”

“…Okay.”

“Sometimes I think I'm two men.”

“Hush,” Thea said. “You're falling asleep.”

“Twins in one body—one of stone and one of smoke.”

“Which are you, then?” Thea said.

“…Smoke, I think.”

Without a word, Thea straddled him again and felt him grow in her hand. She fit him inside her and rode.

◊

Sakyo Kemura—Mr. Dark Sky—wasn't like Simon at all. He was Japanese, with ice-blue eyes, heavy, straight hair, and a swagger that would have looked foolish if it weren't so thoroughly earned. He didn't talk a lot, but when he did, what he said was worth hearing. He smoked too much, Thea supposed, and he had a terrible temper that he'd learned, over the years, to aim, like a fire-hose, at those who deserved it most. He lived for situations like the Moloch Incident—always ready to ram a lightning bolt straight up someone's ass.