Marrow (15 page)

“Oracle…” I breathed. My eyes shifted between my possessed friends. “Is that…you?”

“The one and only,” said Whisp and Sapphire together. “Do you like my new outfit?”

Both Sapphire and Whisp gestured to themselves in synchronized motions.

“It takes a couple years off, doesn’t it?”

If Oracle was trying to be funny, it wasn’t working. “What happened to their eyes?” I asked.

“It’s a normal effect of my true power,” said Whisp and Sapphire’s voices. “It takes a great deal more concentration on my part to normalize their eyes, and my mind is in a hundred places at the moment. Thanks to you and your meddling friends, secrecy isn’t as high of a priority anymore. I’ve been planning this all along, but we’re going to have to move ahead of schedule now.”

The elevator lights continued to flicker. I glanced around at the stationary elevator.

“How’d you stop the elevator?” I asked. “You’re a Telepath, not a Telekinetic.”

“I’m controlling the electrician downstairs as well. You will find that when you can control any
one
,
you can control any
thing
. But enough talk. There’s been a change of plans. You are going to come to me.”

The elevator hummed to life as it lurched downward. The lights ceased flickering.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why not just mind-control me too?”

“A very valid question. The truth is that I
can’t
mind control you. Not anymore, at least. For some reason I can’t enter your brain anymore. I can’t even read your thoughts.”

“What? Really? But…why?”

Even as I asked, a thought occurred. During Nightmare’s interrogation, I had consciously attempted to mimic my father’s immunity to telepathy. Sure, I was only trying to build a barrier against the hallucinations, but still… Is that what was happening now? I had a permanent, unconscious barrier against all forms of telepathy?

“I have my suspicions,” Sapphire and Whisp said.

The elevator door chimed as it reached the ground level. A shadow slipped over me. I turned to find a massive, muscular silhouette filling the opening.

It was Havoc. Or at least it used to be. His eyes were white like Sapphire’s and Whisp’s.

“Havoc?” I gasped. “You have Havoc?”

“Honey, I can
have
anyone that I want,
”
said Oracle through her human puppets. Havoc’s deep voice had now joined the chorus, making it that much eerier. “Don’t underestimate me, Marrow. The truly unique thing about my power is that I can access the powers of those I control. If I control their brains, I literally have access to everything. I don’t even need to learn how to use it. All of that knowledge is right here at my disposal. Now, I’ve arranged a ride for you. How about we discuss this in person?”

“And if I refuse?” I said.

Havoc, Sapphire, and Whisp laughed in haunting harmony. “Supposing that you
could
fight off three Supers under my control…I think you’re full aware of my visitor this morning.”

I cringed. Flex.

“Sticks and stones may not be able to break his bones…but there is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. The easy way or the hard way. Take your pick.”

My hardened gaze stared into Havoc’s blank white eyes. Finally, I sighed. “Where are you?”

Havoc, Sapphire and Whisp all curved their mouths into unnerving smiles. “The same place I always am. I never leave Maximus home alone.”

Whisp and Sapphire stepped forward, each of them taking me by the hand. Forming a circle with Havoc, he swallowed their hands in his grip.

Our surroundings exploded into a smoky haze. Gravity became a suctioning vacuum, and I felt like I was being folded inside out, exploding through a black hole.

Only a second later, my feet were on solid ground again. My disoriented gaze shifted up from the carpet.

Oracle’s house didn’t look anything like I remembered it.

All of the furniture had been pushed aside, replaced by spotlights, television cameras and cameramen. Several people were tinkering with cords or electrical equipment as Oracle’s armada of cats slunk between their feet. But this was not just any one television news crew. I stood by a window and noticed at least a dozen news vans and crew members skittering around like ants. I spotted several different channel logos on vehicles, equipment and uniforms. It looked like every big news crew in Cosmo City was crammed into or around Oracle’s house. And beyond them, red and blue lights flashed. A perimeter of police cars surrounded the scene.

All of their eyes were white. Every one.

I pulled my gaze away from the window. Inside, the crews' mind-controlled efforts had a very obvious focus. Every light, every camera, was pointed at a single figure tied to a chair and gagged. Flex's eyes were red and swollen. It was obvious he had been crying, but I don’t think it was so much
what
was happening to him as
who
was doing it to him—Oracle, the woman who took him in from the orphanage. Probably the only mother he ever knew.

I had cried like that before.

“You probably think I’m insane.”

Oracle’s voice was unmistakable. Cameramen and technicians stepped aside as she emerged from the crowd. She was hunched slightly, resting on a cane, wearing an ugly black dress and an uglier knitted shawl. Her milky white eyes stared past me.

“Oh, I don’t
think
you’re insane,” I said. “That would imply that I had any doubt about it.”

“How little you know,” said Oracle. “I’m not the villain, Marrow. I’m the hero. I’m simply a breed of hero who’s willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish what needs to be done.”

“And what would that be?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said, gesturing to everything surrounding us. “Your father, Marrow! This is all for your father! There are several hackers under my control who will tap us into the CTN Tower and get us on every television screen in Cosmo City. I’m going to kill Spine once and for all—the one thing that Fantom could never do. And I’m going to use you and Flex as bait.”

This had to be the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Right up there with underwear. Seriously. It’s like a prison for your butt. Who decided we have to wear those anyway?

“Bait?” I repeated. I raised an incredulous eyebrow. “If we’re bait, isn’t he actually supposed to
care
about us?”

“Such naivety,” said Oracle. “You really don’t get it. He’s your father. Of course he cares about you.”

“No, I don’t think
you
get it,” I said. “He
abandoned
me. He’s as much my father as Larry the Cable Guy is. I might as well be dead. That’s how much he cares about me.”

Oracle shook her head of frizzy gray hair. “There was once a day when I could see inside Spine’s head. And he loved you infinitely more than his own life.”

“Yeah, before my mom died and he went out of his freaking skull, maybe,” I said. I attempted to say this without emotion, but the words cracked slightly coming out. It was even more uncomfortable having this conversation with the crowd of mind-controlled news crews bustling around.

“I would think the same thing too,” said Oracle. “But there is one piece of evidence that proves otherwise.”

I rolled my eyes, unconvinced. “What’s that?”

“I can’t read your mind anymore,” said Oracle.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” said Oracle. “I could read your mind when you came to visit me, and now, only a few days later, I can’t. What does that tell you?”

“Uh…” I said.

“It tells you that something in that very short window of time made you immune to telepathy,” she said. Her head cocked slightly as she stared past me. “But you already know what that is, don’t you? You know the what…but you don’t know the
who
.”

“I officially have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. Which was partly true. The last thing she said made about as much sense as… well… underwear.

“You probably already know that you developed a telepathic barrier during your interrogation with Nightmare,” said Oracle. “But you probably also think that this was your own doing. What you don’t realize is that that’s what Nightmare wanted all along. That’s what Spine wanted.”

I blinked. There was no way I had heard correctly.

“Your father used Nightmare to make you immune to my power,” Oracle continued, filling in the silence.

“Ha,” I said in a flat tone. “That’s funny. Because I thought he was interrogating and torturing me. My bad.”

“The interrogation and mind torture were a cover,” she said. “Nightmare’s hallucinatory power is telepathic in nature. It’s all based in the brain. His goal was to use it over and over again until your power altered the bone matter in your skull, creating a psychic barrier. This was your father’s unconventional attempt to protect you from me. I’m sure your father experimented with the very same method to develop his own immunity to my power. I must say, it’s a clever trick.”

I couldn’t believe it. All those hours of psychological torture, being killed over and over again…

They were to protect me?

I didn’t know if I wanted to hug my father or punch him in the face.

What was I thinking? Of course I still wanted to punch him in the face. Over and over and over again. But still…

“If my father cares about me, that means there might still be some good inside him, right?” I asked. “Why go to all this length to lure him in and kill him? I mean, he’s pretty much disappeared, hasn’t he? He hasn’t hurt anyone in ages.”

“Love for a child does not make one a good person,” said Oracle. “Shortly before he developed an immunity to my power, I had the misfortune of peering inside his head. He’s evil.
Pure
evil. I’ve never felt so much anger and hatred in one person. And he’s coming back. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. And when he does, Marrow, people are going to die.”

“Yeah, but Fantom—” I protested.

“Fantom will fight him, but we don’t know who will win,” said Oracle. “I’m not willing to take that risk. So I’m taking matters into my own hands. Any casualty in the process will be for a worthy cause. I’m sorry, Marrow.”

A massive hand clasped onto my shoulder. I didn’t even have to glance at it to realize it was Havoc. A smoky mist exploded around me. I teleported twenty feet forward, right beside Flex, only now there was another chair right beside him. Havoc shoved me into it. Another white-eyed cameraman was approaching with rope.

Like heck I was going to go along with this. I always wanted an excuse to punch Havoc in the face.

I tapped into my skeletal structure, making my arm light for a swift, last second, weight-intensified blow. I barely had a chance to move my arm, however, before a freezing mist engulfed me. Every limb and muscle went rigid. Sapphire emerged as the mist cleared. I glanced down to find that my entire body was coated in a thick sheet of ice from the shoulders down. It pricked my skin like tiny needles everywhere.

“There’s no need to get so worked up over this,” said Oracle as she walked towards me from across the room. “Whether you realize it or not, this is the greatest heroic purpose you could ever serve—to help defeat the most horrific Supervillain of our day. This is what you’ve lived your whole life for, right? To be a hero? Embrace it, Marrow. This is your destiny.”

Havoc retrieved the rope from the cameraman and was fast at work tying my ice-coated body to the chair. This might have been a mildly impossible task if I hadn’t been conveniently frozen in an awkwardly bent position with my butt sticking out. Geez, did I always look this idiotic when I fought?

“W-w-w-w-what are you going to do with us?” I asked, trembling inside my icy shell. I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.

Oracle opened her mouth to respond but paused, raising her head to some invisible distraction.

“Everything’s ready,” she said, every wrinkle accentuated by a sick smile. “Are you boys ready to be TV stars again?”

Dozens of empty white eyes were all trained on us. Several faces were halfway hidden behind cameras directed our way. A particular display screen was facing us so we had a clear view of what we looked like on camera. Flex and I looked horrible—he, red-eyed and gagged, and me, shivering in a sheet of ice. Oracle was beaming like a psychopath.

A portable sign with the words “On Air” lit up in green.

“Good morning, Cosmo City,” said Oracle. Several cameras zoomed in on her face. “Allow me first to apologize for interrupting your normal programming. My message is actually only for one individual—one whom you all know well. One whom you all once feared.”

“Spine.”

Oracle smile vanished and her brow hardened over her milky eyes.

“I know you’re out there, Spine,” she said. “I’d like you to come pay me a visit. Now, before you question whether this is worth your while, let me show you what is at stake here.”

Oracle reached a knobby hand to Flex’s gag and pulled it down to his neck. She then hobbled aside, and the cameras zoomed out. The display screen honed in on us in all our pathetic glory.

“Do you two have anything to say to the camera?” she asked.

Flex glared fire at Oracle but didn’t open his mouth. I had about as much to say.

“Very well,” said Oracle. She turned back to the cameras. “Here’s how this will work, Spine. I will give you until 7:00 p.m. That is in roughly one hour. If you are a minute late, I will execute one of our lucky guests here tonight on live television. Please don’t make me resort to that. I just had new carpets put in.”

The “On Air” sign blacked out.