(...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.
"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
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