SG: Subtler Than Light #7 (3/3): Clock

(...concluded from part two, preceding)

***

"Hey, maaaan!" yelled one of the hoboes about twenty feet from El Guerrero de los Pantalones. His voice was tinny on the tiny speaker of the camera in Johnny Clark's hands. "Ain't you hot in that metal? You ain't been superguyin' in Cali long, huh?"

Johnny realized he'd been holding his breath, and gently released it. The camera's captured video, filmed from a hovering vantage some fifty feet above Esteban and less than ten above and ten to the north of Psywave and Galaxy Hunter, continued to play.

"Yeaah," another voice rumbled. A human-size kaiju next to the hobo. Jolene Godziller, as Shelby d'Rodang had identified her on bringing her to Sickbay for Dr. McCavish to give a medical checkup to a while ago. "That super with you has the right idea!"

"Let's go," Galaxy Hunter said, and started to jet away. She stopped when it was clear the flying woman wasn't following. "Psywave! Come on! We don't have time!"

But they had a little more time. He couldn't see Psywave's expression from the camera's angle, but he could tell she and Esteban were staring at one another for a long moment.

Then, just as the picture wobbled and faded, she and Hunter flew away.

Johnny Clark was no stranger to astonishing sights. Growing up with two superguys--Mighty Guy and MeltDown--as parents in the stubbornly-burgeoning-despite-the-constant-carnage city of Megapolis, it was easy to grow numb to the sight of super-powered battles. By the time he'd learned his multiplication tables, he'd seen plenty of takeover attempts featuring zombified citizens, metallic crabs, homicidal cartoons, or combinations thereof. By the time he'd completed elementary school, he was often going along with his folks so they could use whatever scheme was being perpetrated by the super-villain of the moment to demonstrate lessons they wanted him to learn. The battle he'd seen on his recently-revived flying camera had barely been a skirmish by his standards, and he didn't see much to learn from it, other than that low-level villains like The Programmer never seemed to meet a bad life choice they didn't embrace with both arms and legs.

Nevertheless, he was shaking. Just a little.

The sun had nearly set, and Venice--along with the other cities of the greater Los Angeles area--was now alive with light from the streets and many of its buildings. The boardwalk below was no less thronged than it had been that morning. Tourists rubbed shoulders with assorted people in spandex, while others in worn robes or leather outfits swapped rolled-up parchments and dog-eared cards with one another in seedy alleys. He wondered how many of them even knew a bomb had gone off in the _Subtler Than Light_ just that morning.

When Psywave landed again, this time next to him, he stilled himself and gave her a friendly nod.

"Still can't find Hunter," she said, sounding a shade tired. "Ever since The Programmer--or El Esbirro, or whatever he's calling himself now--got snatched from us by that new Dweller in the Shades, she's been out looking for the Heart of Mu. Which wouldn't worry me so much, if she'd only contact me."

"You're not the only one," said Johnny. "The only times Bonnie's come out of the Mu'Kaos' lab since she got back from Malaga's been to ask people if they've seen her." He cocked his head at Psywave, who leaned against the railing of the STL's deck less than five feet from where he stood. "You're sure you don't know what the connection between Hunter's armor and this, whadyacallit, Damn Thing she brought?"

Psywave shook her head. Her shoulder-length red hair caught a breeze from the near-dark Pacific, momentarily obscuring her masked face.

"Shadebeam told us it was connected," she said. "But I have to admit I couldn't follow the explanation of how, or why. I... assume Cendra briefed you on who I am, and why I'm here?"

"Some things," Johnny answered. "You were in Malaga, at the end of Burning M00se, when this Galaxy Hunter arrived, sans armor but with this new suit waiting for her. Someone who you and Shade both knew, who warned you about a Reptiloid cult who'd stolen the Heart of Hy Brasil from the Ottsamaddawiduan Treasury so they could use it to search out the other Hearts... including the Heart of Mu. Which suggests that you've got offworld contacts beyond that of a typical Burning M00se attendee. Maybe, despite your appearance, you're an offworlder yourself."

"Did Ms. Seconds add that last part, or is that your supposition?"

"I'm more than a pretty face," said Johnny. Despite himself, a smile crossed his face. "And you're more than one as well, I'm sure."

"Glad someone thinks that," said Psywave. Though her mask obscured her eyes, Johnny felt sure they rolled for a moment. "But, times like these, I gotta wonder. Can I ask... are you patched into the STL network? Will you know if someone searching spots Galaxy Hunter?"

"I'm in, yeah," said Johnny, tapping the transceiver clipped to his t-shirt collar. "Though I'm not official crew, mind. Friend of the Seconds' family... and the Veracruzes." He paused, wondering if he really wanted to know the answer to his next question. "What do *you* know about *me?*"

"I looked up your bio after we met this morning in Ms. Seconds' office," she answered. "Son of Mighty Guy and MeltDown, superguys famed for their past membership in CalForce and current protection of the city of Megapolis. You went to the A.L.U. Acadley... er... Academy... for a couple years before you... left?"

"It was my choice," Johnny said, hoping he didn't sound too defensive. At least, not as defensive as any conversation about it with his folks ever made him feel. "I... I didn't fit in. The kids there..." He shook his head. "I took tests okay, but had a hard time focusing on my classwork. My teachers bent over backwards to help... literally, in the case of Professor Flexi in Remedial Night Patrolling... but I came to realize I didn't *want* to be a superguy. At least, not the way they had it laid out."

"Your folks must've not been happy with that."

"It's strange... I thought Dad would be disappointed... and he was, at first, kinda... but he also came around first to the idea of letting me find my own path. Mom eventually did too, though she keeps pushing me to try different schools, like that was the problem. But now they're busy molding my younger sister, Soon-Yee, so I'm at least partially off the hook."

"Parents can be tough to wrangle," Psywave answered. "I butted heads with my Mom a lot, too. Dad's the definition of easygoing, though. So... what *do* you want to do with your life?"

Johnny set the camera down on the deck and leaned back on the rail. "That's the *other* tough part. I keep trying new things, but not following through with them because I get distracted by still newer things. Or sometimes the things work out, but the person I'm doing them with decides they'd rather do something else than be around me."

She raised an eyebrow, a move her formfitting mask didn't hide.

"It doesn't help that I do these things with friends who become more than friends... or who want to become more than friends and I just don't clock it in time. Or they just want something casual and I want more, or they want more and I've sworn off romance that month." He shrugged. "That was kind of a problem at the Academy, to be honest. I could never get into the same book with a girl, never mind the same page."

"So when you asked me for an interview for your web-series..."

"...I was really angling for an interview," he said, shaking his head. "I just don't think I can focus on any kind of relationship anymore... least not until I've got more of my life sorted out."

"I wasn't actually thinking 'relationship' this morning," Psywave said, looking out to sea. "I've had nothing but bad luck at that as well. Either I'm breaking hearts, or mine's getting wrecked, or sometimes both plus I'm fleeing to avoid flaming debris."

"That bad, huh?"

"That good," she replied, "while it lasted." She gave him a wry smile. "It's never as easy as my folks make it look. Not only are they still bonkers for one another, they've got other lovers, and it's just so... *natural*... for them. Meanwhile, I can't even get one other person right."

She made a face, as if realizing what she'd just said.

"I'm sorry, I guess I'm oversharing..."

"It's okay," he answered with a laugh. "Oversharers are my people."

Psywave froze.

"Uh," she said, after a few seconds.

"Something a friend of mine once said," Johnny replied, looking down at the street. "Well, babysitter, really. If you're ten and the gi... young woman who's watching you is only watching you 'cause she was told to, it's not really 'friends,' is it?"

"Uh," Psywave repeated.

"But there was one time she really listened to me," he went on. "Mainly 'cause of how upset I was. See, we'd been out hunting Dr. Toon and some animated monster girls he'd lost control of, and I was supposed to be observing how to do what they called a 'Megapolis sweep,' only I got distracted by the Doc's YouTube history with all these how-to videos he did on getting 4k performance out of some 280 dpi cartoon creatures, you know, for local villains on a budget, and I forgot to secure the most likely escape routes... Mom didn't like that at all. So she and dad lectured me on basic supervillain lair lockdown etiquette all the way home, and all on the way to L.A. for their dinner date with their old CalForce pals. They left me with her, 'cause they said I was too young to go to one of Aunt Yury's parties... and she was who I had to talk to, so I did. I kept thinking she'd interrupt me, maybe get me to stop talking by putting on one of those 'Planet of the Apes' movies we both liked, or whatever..."

"Planet of the Apes?" Psywave asked. "Really?"

"She thought they were the most hilarious things," said Johnny. "The original series, not the Tim Burton remake or the modern series. She could even do a good Roddy McDowell impression. Said they were her dad's favorites as well... and when she watched them, she could just zone out and think."

"She have a lot to think about?"

He shrugged. "I guess. Beyond having to put up with watching a kid from out of town with no warning. I did make her laugh a couple times. We'd be having breakfast for dinner, and I'd say, 'You really did it, you damn dirty crepes!' And she'd riff a whole spiel about Roddy McDowell's Ape Law firm... she'd actually laugh. The only time I heard her really laugh.

"But back to what I was saying. I thought she'd shut me up or distract me with a movie or something, but that night I was complaining... she just listened. I think something happened with her that day, something that hit her square between the eyes, and she wasn't in her usual surly mood.

"She just listened. And at the end, she said... 'You may be a mix of 'em, but that's not all you are. Maybe they'll see you for who you are someday... maybe they won't. But don't let that stop you from whatever you have to do to figure out what that really is."

Psywave considered this.

"Even a stopped clock," she finally said.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Never mind. Too... um... you know if she took her own advice?"

"Dunno," Johnny answered. "I hope so. She went back to her University soon after that... and I haven't seen her since."

She nodded.

They rested against the railing for a while, though both turned away from the sea and toward the lamplit deck.

"That wolf girl I saw you with earlier," she said, finally, "you're her sitter, right?"

"Camila. And sometimes, yes. I'm out this way a lot."

"Are you her friend, too?"

"Yeah," said Johnny. "I mean..."

"That sitter you had," she interrupted, "don't think she didn't think of you as a friend, at least a little bit. She was probably just as bad at 'friends' as I am at relationships."

Before Johnny could respond, she pushed away from the railing and headed for the lift circles that would take her down into the _Subtler Than Light._

"I'm gonna talk to this 'Bonnie' and see what's so compelling about this Damn Thing of hers," she said. "Maybe we can use it to track Hunter."

"Worth a shot," Johnny offered.

"See you around," she said, giving him a smile over her shoulder. "And we'll see about that interview when all this is done."

Johnny nodded, and watched her go.

When the gravity lifts took her into the STL, he lifted up his camera and rewound the recording. When it reached the point that had shaken him before, he stopped it and pressed play.

"All right!" Psywave's tinny voice came from the camera speaker. "Who's ready for a crash course in ape law?"

He stopped the film on her grinning expression.

"That's the question," he said, too quietly to be overheard. "Isn't it, Rumi Moroboshi?"

He sighed, and clipped the camera onto his belt.

Rumi Moroboshi. Back on Earth, hiding her identity for reasons he couldn't guess at. Had she fooled Cendra? Or was Cendra keeping her secret for now?

It didn't matter. She had her reasons, and for once, he wasn't one of them. Probably. Beyond that, it wasn't his business.

And even if she had been his friend back then... it didn't mean she was now.

After staring at the space where she'd been for a few seconds longer, he decided, superguy or no, he wasn't done with helping the crew out. He started for the Bridge, wondering if he could still catch Cendra before she took off to hunt for the *Sunken City* along the southern shore.

After two steps, the world went black and red.

He was dimly aware of his knees striking the deck, even as a roaring sound tore through his head.

The blazing red and black in front of his eyes shifted into shapes. A shape. A *tall* shape. A globe atop an eleven-foot tall brick pedestal.

A globe with an enormous hole in its center.

The image shifted, descending...

...no, Johnny realized, he was looking through eyes that were looking up toward the sky, and jagged rocks overhead.

Something was in the distance, visible over a fenced edge... a lighthouse?

Something moved against the night sky...

Then his world went red... and faded to black.

***

Kazza Malissk had scarcely noted the lighthouse as she descended along the treacherous path to the Sunken City, anymore than she'd noted the few humans she encountered along the way. It was a marker, nothing more.

The day's journey had been longer than she'd expected, even though she'd been able to hitch a ride atop an unsuspecting southbound truck for most of the sixty-plus miles required. Her thirst she'd slaked with the last of her canteen's water; her hunger twisted her belly. The humans she saw while traversing the painted, broken land of the Sunken City usually opted to flee before she could feel the temptation of evaluating how flavorful their faces might be.

By the time she reached the lowest point, and the warped air that formed a concealing membrane over a chunk of broken concrete twenty yards wide, the sun was almost down below the horizon. She'd hesitated, and then forced herself to step through it.

Strange, though, now that Kazza was on the other side, the area it concealed seemed so large now. Ominously large, its windows and walls collecting starlight. She forced herself to look away from the membrane, and back at the statue whose initial sight had made her reel.

(And see, for a few moments, the deck of a metallic ship that she knew was the _Subtler Than Light,_ even though she'd never been up that high in her brief infiltration that morning. Not knowing what such imagery meant, she pushed it away to the back of her buzzing head, though she couldn't push it far enough to feel it's tickling continuation...)

The statue was twelve feet tall. Most of it was square, two feet to a side, and bore scratches and chips that might have once added up to words. A section close to the top narrowed from two feet a side to one, and atop that was a globe with a massive hole in it. A hole so massive it made the globe look like a donut.

Kazza reached out her clawed hand and touched the base, ready to jump back if it shook, or sank, or fired any kind of beam. It did none of these things.

The surface felt like bone.

"They don't make 'em like that anymore," said Neil deGrasse Tyson in her ear. The astrophysicist--rather, whatever entity was amusing itself by taking on the appearance of the astrophysicist for the sake of telepathically communicating to her--appeared amused by the odd marker more than a hundred feet below the crumbling edge of the city above. "Come to think of it," he added, "they didn't make *this* one like that. But when the sorceress tore through to the surface, millennia ago... she changed the nature of what she tore through."

"Is this... relevant?" Kazza asked.

"It's history," said the image of Carl Sagan that appeared at her other side. "That's always relevant."

"More to the point," said Neil, "this is the start of your *true* descent. Your journey into the Charnel House... and the door behind which your Lady awaits."

Kazza hefted the black sack closer to her chest, feeling the solid mass of the Heart of Mu within. Had it grown heavier, somehow, now that she was near her destination? Was this why Neil and Carl, the entities tied to the Heart, seemed so solid to her tired eyes?

"What do I do?" she asked. "Toss the eight dollars you told me to bring through that hole in the sphere?"

"Ha ha," said Carl.

"Ha," said Neil. "No. The Lady's herald should be approaching... ah! There."

Someone came out from behind the statue.

Though covered in cheap robes and an ill-fitting helmet, she recognized him at once.

"Adam!" she exclaimed. "Adam Seaborn!"

"The same, madam," said the man she'd know for weeks as a friendly human who lived with the unhoused of Venice. "I'm sorry I couldn't accompany you through the city. There are others vying for the prize you carry, and I had to see firsthand how they were situated. I am glad to report they are several steps behind... though the longer we tarry here, the closer they must get. So keep your eight dollars handy, good lady, for you will need it at the gate."

Something short and feathered emerged from behind him. Two somethings, in fact. Kazza frowned on seeing the white-feathered, dour-faced, colorful-bandana-wearing dodos, if only because they didn't seem too pleased to see her. One of them tapped on a tablet with a webbed foot.

Neil and Carl looked at one another, shook their heads, and vanished from Kazza's perceptions.

"The walk is long, though it's all downhill," said Seaborn. He held out a hand. "Shall we begin?"

Something landed hard before the duo, kicking up white dust. Kazza staggered back. The dodos jumped forward, as if to protect Seaborn.

"Whoever you are," said Seaborn to the dust-shrouded newcomer, "know that the Charnel House has no interest in you, and will *take* no interest... if you stand aside, let us pass, and do not follow."

The white dust subsided, revealing a heavily armored, helmeted figure. Their arms were raised, as though the gauntlets the figure had on were weapons. Likely, Kazza thought, they were.

"Galaxy Hunter," she said, recognizing the warrior from the battle outside Bonnie's Books that morning, from which she'd barely escaped with the Heart of Mu and her hide.

"At the beginning was a sound," said Hunter in a wobbly tone, as light began streaming from their gauntlets. "It confused the universe into being. It was the bl00p from the start of time."

"So much for that," said Seaborn... and whistled.

The whistle was strange and otherworldly. Kazza wondered just what it was meant to summon... then saw the heads and bodies appear from behind rock formations all around them.

Some were animated skeletons. Human, from the looks of them, though Kazza was scarcely willing to lay her eight dollars down on it at this point. Others were some very alive-looking werecreatures, including three wolves and a minx, all in tailored plush velvet business suits. The skeletons waved cutlasses. The weres flexed talons.

The dodos considered the skeletons and the weres, shook their heads sadly, and stepped back to Seaborn's side.

"What's it going to be, Hunter?" Seaborn asked.

Hunter fired.

Seaborn dropped, letting the shots fly overhead.

Weres howled and leaped, while skeleton-swung cutlasses rained on ancient armor.

"You just had to ask!" Kazza yelled, as she, Seaborn, and the dodos bolted into the darkness.


DID SEABORN IN FACT HAVE TO ASK?
COULDN'T HE HAVE JUST TAKEN IT AS READ?
WHAT'S GOING ON WITH GALAXY HUNTER, ANYWAY?
IS PSYWAVE AS BAD A FRIEND AS SHE THINKS SHE IS?
IS JOHNNY CLARK PSYCHICALLY CONNECTED TO KAZZA?
WILL COCO RELAY CRITICAL INFORMATION ON THE M.I.B.'S MOVEMENTS TO ESTEBAN?
WILL LEMON FIGURE OUT HE HAS A TINY MONKEY ON HIS BACK?
WILL MANNY SECONDS LIVE TO SEE 2035?
WILL BONNIE DISCOVER ANSWERS ABOUT THE DAMN THING?
ARE IPECAC SHOOTERS HARD TO MIX?

Superguy. McRib me.

--
Subtler Than Light #7 (c) 2024 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.

Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory

SG: Subtler Than Light #7 (2/3): Stopped

(continued from part one, preceding...)

***

"Well, I'll be damned," Cendra said, as she considered her fierce reptilian expression in the mirror in her palm, and tried not to lacerate herself with her fangs as she spoke. "'This *is* a basilisk. And just because of the big red comb on top, China said I was just a big... rooster."

Erin McCavish looked her up and down.

"I wouldn't want to be a man-sized grain of corn around you," he finally said. Then he waggled his eyebrows. "Or maybe I would...?"

"Probably shouldn't push our luck," she said, as she scanned the description below the picture. "You remember what happened when I became a Gulon."

Erin shuddered. Cendra flipped a few more pages, stopping on seeing another striking image.

"'Amphisbaena,'" she said. The written description below the image of a small dragon with a head on either end was difficult to read. "Twice the murdery venom, twice the fun, looks like. I should probably stop, though... I'm starving with all the shifting I've done."

"And that *after* polishing off everything in the executive fridge," Erin noted.

She considered the amphisbaena again.

"Well, maybe one more..."

"Hi, Cendra," came a familiar, vaguely Belgian voice from the direction of her office door. "Can we interrupt you for a... *oh god look away the basilisk stare will kill us all!*"

Cendra only realized she'd spun around after her guests were in view. Two guys in black three-piece suits flopped to the floor, having shielded another man by leaping in front of him in the nick of time. A fourth person let out a sigh.

"It's not a European basilisk," said Karina Selanova. "The gaze of this one just makes you feel dead inside. I learned how to deal with it while doing some work for Ivanka in the late 2010s. Hello, Cendra. Hello... Dr. McCavish, is it?"

"Erin," said Erin.

"Sorry, sorry," said Cendra, shifting to human, her clothing reappearing as she did. "I was just trying out a few of these... wait." Her stomach rumbled. "All the shifting I've been doing, I've burned through lunch and then some." She pressed a button on her desk. "Code five hunger alert. Now."

The intercom speaker hissed, before the person on the other end answered.

"You... you mean..."

"It's an emergency," Chalandra said. "McRib me."

The person on the other end didn't reply. But seconds later, everyone in her office heard something thumping about above the nectarisite ceiling tiles. One of them swung down, and a wrapped McRib sandwich fell out and landed on the ink blotter. Cendra unwrapped it, took a deep sniff...

...and was suddenly no longer hungry.

"Don't know why that works," she said, as she gingerly tossed the McRib into a wastebasket with a lid, "but all of us should be glad it does."

"Are we ever," said the man the two agent-types had shielded.

"Manny!" she exclaimed, pulling him forward for a hug. "Those other two... are they gonna be okay?"

"They're my service detail," said Manny Seconds, as he hugged her back. "Surprisingly durable. Dr. Lightbuzz grew them for me out of a vat filled with memory foam, Mountain Dew, and shredded tires, after my last detail quit."

As Erin and Karina hauled the agents onto the couch by the door, Cendra glanced at Manny's cane, currently resting against her desk.

"Nothing to report on that question," he said, before she could ask. "I've been the world over... heck, the galaxy over... looking for answers, or even the right questions to ask. No tech, no superpower, no magic has been able to figure out why I'm slowly degenerating. Dr. Cherysi on Hottentot thinks it has to do with the ultraviolet oscillating fillibrating doubletalk device beam that gave me my confusion powers... but even he's guessing."

"So they still think..."

"If it doesn't speed up, I've got twelve years left, on the outside."

"And Chalandra still can't..."

"Due to the 'doubletalk' effect on my cells, my blood would kill her before she could make me a vampire. We've been over this." Manny shrugged. "Doubletalk technology was banned by the Ottsamaddawiduans decades ago, the scientists who developed it vanished, along with all functioning examples of the tech, and the only other two people to have ever been hit by such a beam--Rad and Radian--were cured by sudden onset temporary divinity, a technique I've not yet found a reliable means of duplicating."

"We don't know Radian was cured," Cendra noted. "She died before showing any symptoms."

"Oh, right!" said Manny, a bit too brightly. "There's that. Hah."

Cendra raised an eyebrow. Manny shrugged.

"I've had a damn good life, and I made it to 53," he concluded, forcing a smile. "Even if I prematurely croak at age 65... I don't have any regrets."

He reached out to Karina, who took his hand and gave him a look that anyone who wasn't a telepath might consider enigmatic.

Cendra could feel the emotion underneath. It was complicated, and not entirely something that could be called love, but not something that wasn't, either. A bond forged during the Genocidal Wars, when they had been trapped on the surface in Lady Awe-Inspiring's new world order, while Chalandra was in the ancient, world-spanning tunnels below, waiting for the right time to strike back against the villains who had conquered the world. She could also feel their bonds to Chalandra--Manny's, straightforward and strong, Karina's, muted but unwavering.

She forced her thoughts to the present, in time to notice Karina looking at the book she had set on the desk.

"Another bestiary?" Karina asked. "I thought you gave up on those."

"A gift from Miguel," said Cendra. When Manny opened his mouth, she raised a hand. "I know, I know, I've told him to knock it off. But for the first time, I'm glad he didn't listen."

She sat down behind her desk, and let Karina and Manny take the seats in front. Erin remained standing.

"Of course, I didn't even look at it closely at first. It wasn't until Camila brought it back up from the Mu'Kaos' lab and made me look at the name of the author that I started really checking it out."

"'Ellis Jonesy,'" Manny read from the interior title page. "You... you think he's your biological mom's ancestor?"

"Look at the art of his face!" Cendra exclaimed. "Those were her eyes! And the beasts in these pages... they're the ones I change into. I mean... *exactly* into."

"It's true," said Erin. "That basilisk face she had on when she came in... exactly like in the book. All the other ones I've ever seen her turn into, too."

"All this time," Cendra went on, "and just looking at this book was what I needed to see I've only known the narrowest range of what I can do..."

"What a coincidence that it arrived today of all days," Karina said.

"I said the same thing," said Erin. "But to Miguel, it was just another old book on a long list he was trying to get for her. And all Bonnie knows is the seller sent it from Montana."

"The fact that the title references the 'Empire of the Hidden' indicates it is relevant to today's occurrences," said Manny. "Likewise what we've brought you."

Karina placed the old, weathered, leathery book she'd been carrying into Cendra's hands.

"Karina was visiting Chal and me in Los Requemados," Manny went on, "when your had your... well, let's call it your monkey business, this morning."

"Let's not," said Cendra.

"When China called in Homeland to take custody of The Programmer," said Karina, "I went out to meet the agents on the scene... only to discover The Programmer had already effected his escape. I stayed on the scene while China and her crew finished their survey of the evidence, and kept our people from being too pushy about collecting and evaluating it without working with your crew. I would've left when they were done, save Manny called and said he was on his way here, and to please be there when he arrived."

"To be clear," said Manny, his gaze lingering on the book, "I'm here mainly as a courier. Chalandra said she wanted to come herself, but... when you read this, especially pages at the start and on up to the sticky note there... you may understand why she didn't."

The first page inside the cover confirmed it was what she suspected and dreaded.

"The Journal of Richard Cartier... volume two."

"The missing volume two," Karina added.

Cendra nodded, even as she felt her insides start to tingle. According to the most reputable scholars of the life of the late nineteenth's century premier occult detective, who had fought both mundane and occult crime as the Dweller in the Shades, the second volume didn't exist. No more than the also-missing twenty-first, or next-to-last, volume.

For it to just be casually carried in to her office on the day another person calling herself the Dweller in the Shades teleported The Programmer away just as her people were about to capture him... it was too much to be coincidence.

Manny's heavy look confirmed it for her. "What Dr. Gigawatt suspected is true. The Dweller did cross paths with 'Lady H' again in the aftermath of his clash with the mysterious Sister of the Trails... and he learned who she really was."

"And this volume never resurfaced because..."

"Read it," said Manny.

"Should he be here?" Karina asked, gesturing to Erin.

"I can leave..." Erin started.

"Stay," Cendra said. *I need your eyes, love,* she telepathically sent to him. *And you're judgment. I know you can't tell me what you learned about Shadebeam, and I hate to drop more top secret stuff on you... but I need you to know what I know, in case... things happen.*

Erin nodded, looking troubled. The specter of things happening will do that. It added to the weight of whatever he and Shadebeam had privately discussed that afternoon in Malaga--something that had disturbed and even frightened him.

"There's a change I can make, so I can speed through this," Cendra said. "Just know... there are consequences."

Before anyone could ask what they were, she closed her eyes and summoned the Wolpertinger.

"Whaaa--?" said a startled Manny, as black rabbit-like fur erupted from Cendra's skin, antlers shot from her head, and a twitching nose and snout grew from her face. Electricity crackled in her antlers as she accepted the reading glasses Erin handed to her.

"In trying out different beasts from the bestiary," Erin noted, "we discovered this one. Much quick. So boopable."

Cendra gave Erin a baleful look, even as he booped her nose. Then she put on the reading glasses, and got down to business. She kept the telepathic link open, and let Erin see through her eyes as she read at mythically fast speeds.

And read.

And read.

She only closed her eyes once, though not in time to hold in a few tears.

Finally, after blowing through the marked pages in under two minutes, she reached the page with the sticky note. She closed the book, resisting the urge to push it back into Manny's hands.

"She and Cartier rescued President Cleveland from the Charnel House," said Manny, "but the choices they had to make... the one she made at the end..."

Cendra nodded, unable to speak.

"She was grieving," Karina noted. "What the Sister had done to her Reginald..."

"I see why she kept it hidden," said Cendra. "And why she didn't destroy it. In case the Charnel House ever rose again... whoever went within might know how to survive."

"It's risen again," Manny said. "Chal's sure of it. Not in Gothopolis. Here. Somewhere in Los Angeles. Why we can only speculate, save that we know from what's in the journal that it's the one door to Terra Subterrene that *can't* be closed, and the High Technocrus of the time was heavily indebted to the rulers of Sol Selegna, and if the same is true for whoever the current H.T. is, they may be using that to get Kazza Malissk and the Heart of Mu away from the surface world where none of us can follow."

Cendra nodded. She thought of what she had read... and how it made jumping into a miles-deep shaft leading down into the Earth's crust seem like a cakewalk.

But if it was where Kazza was heading...

"Would either of you object if I gave this book to Dr. Gigawatt?" she asked.

"I asked Chalandra that before I left," said Manny. "She said the decision was yours. As is the book."

"If the conditions I read about hold, we only have until what I'm given by Gigawatt to understand is called in folklore 'the hour of the wolf,' roughly 3 a.m. local time, correct?"

"If," Karina replied. "And yes... though I don't know if this wolf observes Daylight Savings Time."

"Then where do we start looking?" asked Cendra. "There are any number of places in and close to Los Angeles that might be close to the conditions of the Bay of Tears Cartier described, and it sounded like that's the kind of environment the Charnel House demands..."

Just then, the door to the office flew open. The secret service agents, though still unconscious, nevertheless leaped from the couch and wobbled into defensive formation around Manny. One of them croaked a gutteral warning, while the other lightly snored.

"Hey, Miguel..." Erin started.

Miguel looked from him to Manny to Karina and finally to Cendra. He raised an eyebrow at her furry wolpertinger face.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said. "But we've learned that Kazza Malissk is headed for someplace south of here known to at least a few of the local unhoused as the *Sunken City.*"

"Nice reverb," Manny commented.

"Thanks," said Miguel. "It was involuntary. Um..." He looked at the people present. "What am I missing?"

"Another piece of the puzzle," Erin said.

"A hidden doorway to Terra Subterrene that Kazza Malissk is taking," said Cendra. "Likely within this *Sunken City.* If it's anything like what I just read... it'll be coastal. And from what you've said, south of here. Which leaves us with a lot of searching yet to do, but at least now we have a direction. Thank you."

Miguel nodded. He then saw the Bestiary on her desk.

"I see you had a chance to peruse," he said.

"Yes," she said. "Thanks for that, too... though I'll have to put it aside for now. I have to be part of this search." She turned to Erin. "Could you take both these books to Gigawatt and the Mu'Kaos?"

"You got it," said Erin.

"Tell them to focus on the Journal, and leave the Bestiary for later days," Cendra said, as she joined Miguel at the door. "If we get to the *Sunken City* in time, I want their voices in my ear telling me how to get through what's awaiting us."

With that, she forced the reversion to her human form...

...causing her stomach to growl loud enough to echo through the room.

"Er," said Karina, "you said something earlier about... consequences."

"Yes," Cendra said through clenched teeth. "You may want to leave the room. This is going to get... ugly."

With that, her hands flashed toward the trash can, and the still-warm McRib within, as cries of horror filled the office.

***

*You should go full pants,* Coco said inside Esteban Veracruz's head, as Esteban quietly closed the door to Bonnie's Books behind him and pocketed the key. *If his crew sees us and they're hostile...*

*He won't,* Esteban thought back at his metallic bonobo-shaped companion as he approached the stairs to the second floor, moving silently despite the nectarisitic composition of his sandals. *I don't know if I can count on anything else... but he won't order that. Not... without warning me, first.*

As he thought, he glanced up at the CFL bulbs in the ceiling. For a second, he thought he'd seen them stir... and possibly, he realized, he had. But Bonnie assured him as long as he had her store key on him, they, and other aspects of her technomagical security system, would stay in standby mode. He'd worried they might key on Coco, instead, but they seemed to take no notice of him.

His quarry wouldn't have tripped the system because they wouldn't have gone in through the ground floor... and because, as evidenced by his intrusion that morning, Lemon Rydell already knew how to deal with his sister's countermeasures.

*I hear someone,* said Coco, as he crept up to where the stairs reached the upper floor.

Esteban heard the someone too: a wispy but stern voice that sounded like it was lecturing someone. A few seconds listening identified the subject of the lecture as 'Judy.' He had no idea who Judy was, but got the strong impression whoever the voice was lecturing did at a level somewhere between expert and devotee. He slowed his ascent and peered over the edge.

The shelves that lined the walls were in a state of dishabille, the state they'd been left in that morning by a closed-quarters fight between a group of Demon Monkeys led by Lemon, Johnny Clark, and ki Kazza Malissk, a sentient utahraptor that could turn its feathers into laser bolts and shoot them at any and all of the above. A space in the blue-carpeted area in the center had been cleared of books, DVDs, and the like, and was currently occupied by the shimmering image of an extremely old man in a futuristic-looking wheelchair.

"We do not have much time," the withered man rasped, reaching into the blanket that wrapped his presumably equally-withered frame and pulling out a wrapped hard candy. "I must go to hear Judy's judgment soon. Her time is near."

"Director," said the man in the black-and-white suit before him. Lemon, Esteban realized. "I need more time to explain just what happened here today..."

"You have three minutes."

*Agent Rydell is not alone,* Coco told him. *There are four Demon Monkeys in M.I.B. outfits with him, running the holographic projection.*

Esteban peered around the glowing circle the old man appeared to be speaking from. Sure enough, there were four horned howler monkeys in back-and-white business suits standing equidistant from one another and the withered man's image. Each was holding a box with a lens that projected the light that combined into said image, powering it by turning a crank handle that emitted an indistinct tune.

*Is that Richard Cartier?*

*If what Lemon earlier told Cendra is true,* Coco answered. *Extrapolating from archived images of Cartier in the 1890s, I would call it likely.*

Esteban narrowed his eyes as, just feet away, Agent Lemon Rydell spread his hands and ingratiatingly smiled.

"The short, short version, then," said Lemon. "Kazza Malissk double-crossed us. It's clear from how the event played out that she was in league with The Programmer, who the mercenary Demon Monkeys in the Hawaiian shirts and speedos were working for. After the Programmer's first attempt to confuse us and draw us away from where I'd arranged to meet Kazza failed, he sent them in to the battle on the Venice Beach boardwalk with my guys, enabling Kazza to escape. We've been all over the city trying to find her, but she's vanished."

Cartier--if that's who he indeed was--frowned on hearing this, though between the low quality of the projection and the high volume of his wrinkles, it made little difference in his expression.

"I ingratiated myself with the _Subtler Than Light_ crew hoping they'd have better luck and I'd hear about it, but no dice there, either."

Someone on the Director's end leaned over his shoulder, momentarily appearing with him in the projection. Pale, blonde, with icy eyes that never left Lemon's face even as she whispered in the Director's ear.

"Thank you, Heather," the Director growled, not appearing to spare her a glance. "Agent Rydell, I expect you to obtain the Heart of Mu tonight... and to bring it to me before the night is through. Failure on your part will be... unfortunate."

"For whom?" Lemon asked, his expression unperturbed.

The Director said nothing, though the corners of his mouth turned upward.

"Will you be coming out to the STL?" Lemon asked. "Cendra Seconds was reluctant to agree to a meeting, but acceded on her boss's orders, if you're willing..."

"I twice learned the hard way it's best not to dance to the tune of a Harkness," Cartier said. "You now have a path that doesn't require her. Take it."

Abruptly, the image disappeared.

Lemon considered the empty space where the Director's image had once flickered.

"You can come up now, Este," he said. "You too, Coco, if you're there."

Esteban wasn't sure who was more startled in that instant -- him and Coco, or the Demon Monkeys accompanying Lemon. A couple of the latter started for the stairs, but stopped when Lemon raised a hand.

"What gave us away?" Esteban asked, as he climbed the rest of the way to the second floor, with Coco floating alongside him.

"Nothing," Lemon admitted, as he turned. "Just a prickle on the back of my neck. Director Cartier calls it my sense for the dramatic necessity of a situation. Pretty sure he made that up, but still..."

"You're lucky your sister's too busy with her new toy to come over with me," said Esteban. "She might've given the whole 'smite my older brother' thing another go." He laughed. "That's something I'd've loved to see."

"I bet."

Esteban willed himself not to look away. Everything he'd suppressed for the minute he'd seen Lemon that morning on the STL threatned to surge back up in that second. In his brown eyes were memories of his own face reflected. In his lips were memories of what he'd thought in his teenage naivete was love, what his heart now knew were lies. He'd made a cutting remark and flown away before.

Now, he'd face his past. He'd already made peace with Rumi earlier in the day... how much harder could this be?

"Why here?" he asked. "You could've had Kazza meet you anywhere in the city."

"Since you're here, why don't you tell me?"

"You needed someplace close," Coco said. Aloud, through the speakers that formed in that instant on his metallic throat, he sounded even younger than he did in Esteban's head. "Where your crew could set up a teleportation anchor so they could come and go without needing line-of-sight, as they otherwise would. Now that they can't 'port in or around the STL, a state of affairs I've verified--"

"The secret of how to generate the suppression field you had to concede to Cendra so you could... ingratiate yourself with her..." Esteban noted.

"--it's the next-best port in your very messy storm," Coco concluded. "And you're slipping away from the STL now and coming here indicated what your conversation with the Director has confirmed: you've learned a way to the *Sunken City* without us."

"We may," Lemon said, looking down at the monkey closest to him, who was putting away his portion of their holo-projector.

The monkey looked up at Esteban and said, "Ooook aak eek oook. OOK."

"Lancelot Dink says ook?" asked Coco.

"Ook?" the monkey said, then scowled.

"Beyond that," said Lemon, as Esteban approached to within a couple steps of him, "I wanted to tweak Bonnie. It's funny when she finally got her bookstore up and running, she picked a location so close to you and Miguel." He shrugged. "Or maybe it isn't. I know she's not hung up on him in any romantic sense, but he was her friend when a lot of people weren't... and she doesn't forget something like that."

"Do you?" Esteban asked, before he could stop himself.

Lemon pursed his lips for a moment. Then he looked at the Demon Monkeys around him.

"Give us the room, boys..."

"OOOK."

"And girl..."

"Oook ook."

"And you too, Zody. Wait for my signal."

The suited demon monkeys looked at one another, made various shrugging motions, then vanished in several poofs.

Lemon looked to Coco, then to Esteban.

"You too, Coco," said Esteban. "Make yourself scarce for a few. We've got... some things to say to one another."

*Este,* Coco called on the link he shared with Esteban, inaudible to Lemon.

*I mean it,* Esteban thought to him. *This won't take long.*

Coco looked from one man to the other, sighed, and melted into an amorphous blob of liquid nectarisite. The blob spiraled in the air for a couple seconds before separating into three streams and diving into Esteban's nectarisite sandals and belt.

"He won't listen in," said Esteban.

Lemon shrugged.

They looked at one another for nearly a minute. Lemon's expression was enigmatic to Esteban, though he sensed a question on his lips. He was afraid that, to Lemon, his expression was too easily readable.

So what, he thought. Too much had gone hidden between them for too long.

"I'm not going to apologize for what I said this morning," said Esteban. "You had it coming."

"You were mortified you'd said it," Lemon countered. "The instant you were out of sight, you regretted it, and it's been eating at you since."

"Yeah," Esteban admitted. He felt something small and vulnerable rise up his back, along his spine. "But I also stand by it. I *don't* trust you, as much as I still want to. Maybe *because* I still want to. And that... that breaks my heart."

"You never did trust me, toward the end," Lemon replied, cocking his head and giving him a half-smirk. "Which just made us a bigger challenge." He winked. "And you know I love a challenge."

Esteban closed his eyes, suddenly regretting being alone with Lemon. The feeling climbing his spine reached the back of his neck, and he suppressed a shudder. This close, he could smell, in addition to light aftershave and a few monkey-based scents, the sweat on Lemon's face and neck. He could remember how that sweat tasted.

He bit his lip.

"What I did to you... chasing after Rumi... seducing her and getting her to keep it secret from you..." said Lemon, "...it was wrong."

He opened his eyes, and was startled to see Lemon was now nearly toe-to-toe with him, looking up into his eyes. The familiar coffee-scent of his breath enveloped him.

His shoulder itched. He ignored the sensation.

"I know that," Lemon went on. "I knew that, then. The Heart of Mu made sure I knew that... even after we stuffed it back into the floor in the Root of the _Subtler Than Light_ and the effect it had on me faded. Before, when I flirted with others, knowing you'd find out... I was just doing it because it made your eyes light up."

"With anger."

"With passion," Lemon corrected. "I loved seeing that in you. You kind of lost that, the longer you worked on trying to unwind the mystery of the STL and nectarisite, getting nowhere."

He held up his hands, on seeing what Esteban knew was a suddenly furious expression.

A tingle ran down Esteban's arm, from his shoulder to his elbow.

"Not an excuse, I know," Lemon said. "I... the point is, I never felt any *guilt* for doing things like that. You were... when we found the Heart, and it changed me... I could feel that for the first time. I felt like I was *whole.* For someone like me, to feel that... I don't think I can really say what that..."

He trailed off. Took a breath. Esteban inhaled as he exhaled.

"And when we put it away," Lemon finally continued, "I should've gone back to what I was before. So everything could've been as it was before for us. And I did."

Lemon placed a hand on Esteban's shoulder. Esteban fought off a tremble. Something... the tingle, the itch... went from his elbow to his wrist.

"But I also didn't," said Lemon. "And that's why... that's why Rumi."

"I... I don't understand," Esteban admitted.

"I didn't, either. It took me years to figure it out."

"During which time you somehow joined the unofficial reincarnation of America's most... American... spy service?"

"Man's gotta make a living," Lemon said, giving him a wink. "But that's a story for another day. Now... you got anything better than a pithy bon mot to say to me, or are we done here?"

Esteban took a breath. He'd thought for a long time... for years... about what he'd say to Lemon if he ever got the chance. About how Lemon had hurt him time and again, and how that last night on the _Subtler Than Light,_ seeing him and Rumi in intimate action, knowing that everything they'd been through had just been a game. He'd long ago worked out how he'd express his anger, his sadness, and his heartbreak, every word calibrated to strip the smug look from Lemon's face and make him know, unavoidably, what he'd done and what he'd never get from Esteban again.

"I want to kiss you very badly," he said instead.

"Huh," said Lemon, arching an eyebrow. "And here I was hoping you'd kiss me very well."

That was all it took. Then there were lips, and tongue, and fingers digging through the hair in the back of necks. For a second, Esteban thought he felt Lemon tremble.

It was just as well he couldn't speak, Esteban thought. If he couldn't speak, he wouldn't cry.

Several poofing sounds filled his ears. The lips against his disappeared.

Lemon was gone. Esteban looked around the bookstore, confirming that he was suddenly alone.

He fought back the pain deep in his throat. He had no time for it.

*Coco?* he thought. *Where are you?*

*Where you put me,* Coco's voice came back. *About two-thirds of the way up the back of his head, nearing the scalp. Can't say where we are right now, but he's not talking. Just breathing.* A pause. *The others are talking to him. They've arranged transportation. He had them pull him out the instant it was ready to go.*

Esteban grinned. "They don't know you're there?"

*I re-entered Los Pantalones and emerged in this substantially smaller, quarter-inch-tall monkey form,* Coco said. *Just like we practiced it for when you tell me 'make yourself scarce.' It was easy to come back in, climb up your back and down your arm, and let you place me. It's not a capability we were aware of when he was around... he shouldn't suspect I'm here.*

*Maybe not,* thought Esteban, as he headed downstairs. *But be careful. If you get too far away from Los Pantalones, while that small... I may not be able to find you in time to revive you.*

*You be careful too, Este,* Coco sent. *I will send word when we arrive in this *Sunken City,* if they've indeed found it. Coco out.*

Esteban locked the bookstore door behind him as Bonnie had instructed, then jogged toward the _Subtler Than Light,_ ignoring the surprised looks of those on the boardwalk who saw him. As he ran, he thought of the boy he'd known, and the man he now had to admit he didn't know at all.

He hoped Lemon's understanding of him was equally out-of-date. Otherwise, Coco was in trouble.

(concluded in part three, following...)

--
Subtler Than Light #7 (c) 2024 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.

Gary W. Olson LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/gwox
Superguy/Sfstory LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/superguysfstory

SG: Subtler Than Light #7 (1/3): Even a

Miguel Veracruz looked down at the remains of the thin nylon tent. He inhaled through his nose, taking in the robust scents and unique olfactory palette of what was inside, and what had been inside. Though he couldn't see himself at that moment, he felt sure he was turning green, fur and all.

"Thats... that's not chicken," he managed to say in between suppressed urges to heave. A breeze from the darkening Pacific Ocean did little to dispel his queasiness.

"Course not," said Kris (who sometimes, such as in episode four, went by 'Nik'), the right-shoulder head of the trenchcoat-wearing man who'd brought him and his pack to the homeless encampment on the Venice Beach boardwalk, about half a mile from the _Subtler Than Light._ "This is the year twenty-twenty-three, innit? We don't got no chickens, here."

"What," said Kram, the man's left-shoulder head. "You think we're *millionaires,* Mister Cruisin' fer the Truth?"

"What?"

"'Vera,' in Latin, means 'true,'" noted Marty Steinmetz, as he delicately lifted up the torn tent with his black-furred werepanther hands to look at what little had been left inside. "And while 'cruz' correspondingly yields 'cross,' I believe Kram was attempting a bit of linguistic foolery. A phonetic play on words..."

"I got yer linguistic foolery right here," Kram snarled. The hand on his side of the body he shared with Kris indicated a place where Miguel never wanted to see foolery--or anything else--spring from.

"I'm not getting any scent I'd call reptilian," Miko Tagashi said, her silver-furred snout twitching. "Something smells like hot dogs, though."

"That's us," Kris and Kram said in unison.

"There's nothing of use in here," said Marty. "A few Bunzai pizza boxes, a blanket, and a signed eight-and-a-half-by-eleven of Neil Degrasse Tyson. There's a faint residue of something on the tent itself... maybe from a device she had on her. Only it's kind of... rubbery."

"Her mask," said Kris. "She put it on to fool you, or anyone who might be lookin' fer her. Seaborn's idea. You wanna know about her, you oughta--"

"Seaborn?" Miguel asked, rounding on the heavyset two-headed man. "*Adam* Seaborn, by any chance?"

Kris furrowed his brow. Kram rolled his eyes back into his head and started mumbling the lyrics to a sea shanty. Both hands scratched where they collectively kept their professed supply of linguistic foolery.

"Yah," Kris finally said. "That's the gent's name. Been on the 'walk e'en longer than me, and I been here ever since Dr. Pop drank from the wrong bubbling beaker and... ah... popped, leaving me an' Kram t' break outta his undergroun' lab in Burbank. Ain't that right, Kram?"

Kram continued mumbling lyrics. Kris sighed and knocked Kram's head with his own.

"Whaaat?" Kram said, as his eyes rolled back to looking outward. He frowned, seeing multiple werebeing eyes on him. "Ah, what was the question?"

Miguel had a claw-tip on his transceiver. "China, you on the line?"

After a few seconds, he heard her crackling voice. "What's up, dog?"

Miguel sighed. "I'm not a... never mind. Are you still at the park?"

"On my way in with the last of what we pulled from the Programmer's LairBnB," she answered. "Along with guests from Homeland. Lair itself is closed back up and locked down."

"Was Adam Seaborn still at the park when you left? Better yet, is he with you now?"

He waited. Marty stuffed what was left of the tent into a dufflebag. Miko held out a plastic bag that held two bottles to Kris/Kram.

"As promised for your help," she said to him, as they took the bag and both heads tried to peer inside.

"Looks like he took off," said China. "Zia says last time she saw them was just when Homeland showed up. He must've taken advantage of the new traffic and made himself scarce."

"Y'should check the *Sunken City,*" said Kram. He jumped back a bit, apparently startled by the sudden reverb in his voice. "Seaborn's always talkin' about that place. I know that raptor lady asked him about it."

"Thanks, China," said Miguel. "See you back at the STL." He gave the transceiver a slight squeeze to break the connection. "You know where this '*Sunken City*' is, either one of you?"

Kris and Kram collaborated on a shrug. "Underwater somewhere, I guess," Kram volunteered. "Never seen the place, mind. Seaborn said it was south'a here."

As he spoke, he pulled the full bottle of Macallan scotch from the bag.

"What now?" Miko asked, as she stepped away from the two-headed vagrant.

"Back to the STL," said Miguel. "Get word to Apples and Moon Moon to meet us there. We need to talk with Cendra and Esteban about next steps."

"Good luck!" Kris told them, as he opened the bottle and poured it on his head, and then Kram's, and then spashed it around vigorously under his trenchcoat.

"I hate to think of what he's going to do with the other bottle," said Marty.

Kram chuckled while gazing at the bottle's label, which read 'Ipecac.' "That's for when we're rollerbladin' and doin' shots on the pier later. Y'oughta come by!"

Miguel, Marty, and Miko hustled away without further reply.

***


SUBTLER THAN LIGHT
Episode 7
[Hidden Hearts, Part Seven]
"Even a Stopped Clock"
by
Gary W. Olson

"I fool myself to sleep and dream
 Nobody's here, no one but me
 So cool, you're hardly there
 Why can't this be killing you?"

- Goldfrapp,
  "Lovely Head"


***

The hazy red-tinged sun was just kissing the sea when Johnny Clark heard the clicking of claws on the metallic deck of the _Subtler Than Light._ He didn't turn, his gaze fixed on the horizon. It had been a long day of furious action interspersed with galloping bafflement and epic waiting around, and a brilliant Ventura Beach sunset was one of the few good things to come out of it.

The clicking grew closer. Johnny shifted the camera in his hands to the crook of his left arm, knowing what would come next.

A scrape. A shadow.

He stepped quickly to his left and held out his free right hand, palm up.

"Ooof!" Camila Veracruz ooofed, as she landed stomach-first on said palm. She flailed for a second, then pushed up, pulling her legs in so she'd land on the hand with her furry clawed feet.

"So close," said Johnny, giving the nine-year-old light-brown-furred werewolf girl a quick smirk before flicking his hand upward. Ready for this, Camila pushed off to her left, so that she next landed on Johnny's shoulders.

"How do you always know?" Camila asked, as she peered over his head upside down at him. "I was super quiet this time!"

"I've babysat you enough that I know your click-clack on these decks," Johnny replied. "Especially your 'I'm bored, so let's see if I can sneak up on Johnny' variation."

Camila leaped from his shoulders to the _Subtler Than Light's_ railing, then frowned at him.

"I'm not a baby!" she insisted.

"Excuse me... *wolfgirl-sat.*"

"Better. A little."

"How long did your mom ground you for?"

"Rest of this week," Camila said, as she did cartwheels along the railing, roughly sixty feet above the crowded Venice Beach boardwalk, her light brown tail flowing in her wake. Johnny stilled his instinctive alarm, knowing her balance, skill, and dexterity were good even for her kind. "But she wasn't upset. Not really. I think seeing who wrote that book surprised her. She was still looking at it when I left."

Johnny nodded. He'd heard about it from Dr. Gigawatt, who Cendra Seconds had called up from his inner chamber of Hollow Earth Conspiracies and Yarn Abuse to get his opinion. Gigawatt had had a lot of thoughts about it, ones he'd unloaded on Johnny after Cendra refused to let him take the book back to the science lab he shared with Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle for analysis and scanning. Johnny, who was sure he'd heard all of it before--at least much like it, hours earlier when he'd talked Gigawatt down from a Tesla Coil in the science labs--quickly tuned the Doc's ravings out, though he'd caught phrases like 'interior sea,' 'source of the nectar,' and 'I forgot I'd stuck my gum there.' He was patient with Gigawatt, but a lot of that patience had to do with knowing when to just let him get whatever was in his system out.

"Has anyone found that dinosaur lady yet?"

"Afraid not," said Johnny, giving the setting sun one more long look before returning his attention to his camera. "Your dad and some of his pack are investigating where that Kris-or-Nik/Kram guy said he'd seen her hiding, with the homeless up the 'walk a half mile or so."

"Hmph," said Camila, as she flipped to the deck. "Esteban's been out all day looking, too, when he's not keeping an eye on his secret agent boyfriend and those monkeys..."

"Pretty sure he'd add an emphatic 'ex' to that."

"Ex-monkeys?" Camila said, looking momentarily puzzled before shrugging. "Anyway, I saw them all leave like twenty minutes ago, and Este and Coco followed, after making me promise to stay put."

She sighed the most aggrieved sigh in the history of grounded werewolf girls.

"Mom's busy, Erin's busy, Doc's busy, Trice and Hector are busy charging the Lathe back up, Bhossi an' Cla'rabhelle're busy looking at that tractor thing that lady, Bonnie, brought back, everybody else's either out there or going out there, and I'm stuck here."

"Are China, Shelby, and Zia back yet?" Johnny absently asked as he felt along the edge of the camera's casing.

Camila shrugged. "They weren't there when I left the lab. What are you doing with your camera?"

"Trying to figure out why it's not playing back like I want it to," he answered. "I was filming some stuff for my 'Lair Flippers' web series this morning when the bomb went off here, and set its drone-flight controls to follow Este when we were fighting the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing Demon Monkeys. See, with the help of the Doc and some tech lying around Bhossi's lab that they'll never miss, I set it up so I could lock it on someone I had in focus, and the propellers on the rig it was embedded in should've kept up with him. It turned up with the first shipment of stuff China sent from the park just an hour ago, no rig, and the case all jammed up with something. I'm hoping it caught something in Este's first battle with the Programmer that might help somehow..."

On not hearing any follow-up noises, not even a yawn, Johnny looked up and saw Camila was no longer on the railing. A glance over the side revealed no excitement, so he turned to look along the deck, just in time to see five people step away from the holes they'd passed through by the STL's suspension lift. Camila was running toward them at speed.

One of the five, China Moroboshi, was gesturing animatedly toward the section of the deck that had, just that morning, been a large and twisted hole, though thanks to the STL's day-shift maintenance crew and the Lathe of Heaving, no damage was currently evident. The second, a severe-looking, middle-aged woman in a black blouse and trousers, holding a book close to her side as she surveyed the deck. Her gaze lingered on him a moment, though he couldn't figure out why.

The third, a short, salt-and-pepper-haired, vaguely Belgian man in a polo shirt and cargo shorts, had stopped walking, gotten down on one knee with the help of his cane, and had his free arm swung out in anticipation of Camila jumping at him.

"Uncle Manny!" Camila squealed, as the man embraced her.

The fourth and fifth figures, both pale, non-descript, three-piece-suit-wearing, and with hands to their earpieces, watched without comment. Secret Service, Johnny realized. Though they hadn't reacted on Camila's charge--likely because they'd seen her before--they watched her carefully.

Something was strange about their faces. They were stiff, almost wax-mask-like. He thought he heard clicking sounds coming from beneath their facial surfaces.

"There's my favorite grand-niece," said Manny Seconds, hugging Camila with his free arm, a smile flexing his rugged face. She scratched his more-grey-than-black goatee and giggled.

"Did you hear about what happened today?" she asked. "There were these monkeys and they blew up a bomb down in the Root, only a dinosaur lady got to what they were trying to get first and she fooled them and stole it and *I* followed her and got to see them fight these other monkeys in suits, and her feathers turned into lasers and shot Johnny, but then Mom showed up outside the window as a dragon, so--"

"I heard, I heard," Manny assured her. He looked up at Johnny. "Hey, J! You okay now?"

"Yeah," said Johnny, as he lowered his camera and walked over. The Secret Service agents watched him silently and carefully as well, even as their clicks turned to chitters. "It was weird. I was shocked something broke my skin and hurt me like that."

"What's the Doc think about that?"

"Erin or Giuseppe?" Johnny asked.

Manny leaned on his cane to regain a standing position. His hand shook a little, something Johnny didn't remember seeing the last time he'd been around his dad's old CalForce teammate. "Giuseppe," Manny clarified. "Erin's a great doctor, but anything that can hurt the son of Mighty Guy and Meltdown calls for some outside-the-skull hypothesizing. And Dr. Gigawatt's pretty outta his skull these days, or was last time I was here."

"He and the Mu'Kaos are studying the blood sample of mine they took before Bonnie magicked me back to full health."

"Heliumized neutrinos," said the middle-aged woman. "Like I was telling Chalandra earlier. I'd bet your security clearance on it."

"Hi, lady," said Camila. "You smell familiar."

"Do I?" the woman asked, seeming taken aback. "I'm sure we've never met... oh, my manners. I'm Karina Selanova. Secretary of Defense Selanova if you're media."

Camila considered this, then gave Manny a sniff.

"Your scent is on him," she said, matter-of-factly. "Why is that?"

Karina raised an eyebrow. Manny merely laughed. Johnny noted the look they gave one another.

"Camila," said China, lifting the girl onto her shoulder. "Shouldn't you be in your quarters smacking a cup against some bars and shouting 'Attica!'"

Camila gave China a blank look.

"A movie before your time," China said. "Never mind. I'm going to meet up with Zia and Shelby in the science lab and see if they have anything new I can tell Cendra. Want to go with me?"

"Sure!" Camila cheerfully answered, dropping down to the deck. "It's Tony's dinner time. You ever see him devour a lab-grown influencer clone? It's super gross!"

"We'll be in Cendra's office," said Manny. "Not for long, though." He gestured at the book Karina was carrying. "If what's in Chal's book is right, we've got until midnight."

"For what?" Johnny asked, as China and Camila headed for the lift circles.

"There's something Shadebeam brought up this afternoon to Erin and Bonnie that Cendra flagged in her call to Chalandra an hour ago," Manny noted. "The reason I took a 'copter out from Los Requemados instead of waiting for when Chal could come with..." He paused, looking out at the setting sun. "Sorry, J, but we gotta get in and talk with her now."

Manny's cane-hand trembled again. Johnny wanted to ask if Manny was all right, but knew now was not the time.

Johnny watched them walk as quickly as Manny could toward the STL's bridge. He looked at the camera in his hand, and fought off the impulse to dash it against the deck, or heave it in the direction of the setting sun.

"You can't save everyone," a new voice from almost directly behind him said.

Johnny yelped, spun, and nearly fell down. His hearing was good, but the person who'd snuck up on him had been absolutely *silent.*

Or, more likely, she'd flown down from the darkening sky to the east.

"You seen Galaxy Hunter around?" Psywave asked.

(continued in part two, following...)

--
Subtler Than Light #7 (c) 2024 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.

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