Sucker Punch (11 page)

He stopped sinking, but did not rise. Around him orbs spun, spilling faces and places into his brain. Filling it up. Pain, so much pain. Burning, turning…

Wait…

Was that…Vi's face? How was that possible?

W
ynken
, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe —

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

T
he words echoed
in his mind, mixed with memories. So many memories. Meeting Lurch. Leaving his lab to hunt. Crossing distance, traveling through time….

…traveling…hunting…burning…

Am I dying?
He'd thought it would be different. He'd hoped…he'd wanted…

Vi. He wanted Vi, but more than want, he'd hoped to save her….

There was the bitter taste of failure on his tongue. When the blow came he did not fight it….

S
he was cold
. It was freaking August. August was always hot…must be inside, because August inside was colder than an arctic blast….only that didn't seem right either. It felt as if the cold came from her…

Voices called her.
Voices in the deep.
No, one voice. And she wasn't a hobbit, so no deep. There was no deep in NON….

“Detective Baker?” Sounds, thumps on metal, regular enough to be steps or something, then, “Joe? Can you hear me? Joe?”

Warmth trickled through her, starting in her midsection and creeping out like slow-moving goo. The cold faded as warmth moved in. Sun, she felt heat from the sun now. She tried a finger. Thought it moved. Her brain said it moved, but she didn't see it move. Eyes wouldn't open yet. She tried more fingers. Felt like they moved. Lids so heavy. Like a hammer—

Her lids popped up. The hammer. It had come down. Dang, that hurt. Was glad to go lights out. Thought that was it. The light—the sun—hurt her eyes, but at least there wasn't a hammer up there anymore. Okay, that was a seriously crazy thought. Of course there wasn't a hammer hanging in the air overhead. Did she imagine it? She dragged a hand up and touched her head. It throbbed like she hadn't imagined it. Her skin felt clammy as the shock eased from the sun's heat.

That was most painful.

Wynken?

Yes.

We're not…dead?

I am also surprised to not be dead.

She laboriously began to piece together the random memories floating inside her head. They drifted around like a really messed up jigsaw puzzle. Evil nanite infesting Benson here. Wynken there. Joe—he'd been there. Nod—Nod!
Is it…did it—?

There was a sensation of unfurling, like when Wynken moved in.

How did I get here?
A pause.
This brain is aching badly.

The voice was new, distinctly different from Wynken's.

I am sorry. I lack the ability to mitigate the pain. I am not fully online.

Okay, that was Wynken. There was joy in the words, though. Vi felt it, a bubbling up, like millions of bubbles darting around in her tummy. Was a bit disorienting, and it tickled. But it was better than all that other crap.

Wynken? Where are we? Who are we in? How did I get here? Why don't I remember?

I will explain later.

Um, I can hear you both.
Vi thought it apologetically.

Sorry.

Sorry.

A moment of silence, then it came.

Wynken, where is Blynken?

I'm just going to see how Joe is. You two probably need to, um, talk, um, by yourselves.

Vi struggled into sitting position, trying to ignore the whispers in her brain. The sudden stab of grief. Didn't need the nanite heartburn added to the mix. Poor Nod.

In the meantime, she had a situation to assess. And she needed to get up off her assess, because it hurt like a son-of-a-gun. Okay, sit-rep based on available external data. She'd landed on the deck between two sets of benches. It was still August, so it was still hot and humid and yes, she smelled worse than before. Based on throbbing in elbows, hips and head, the landing hadn't been pretty. At least she hadn't gone over the edge. Physically gone over the edge. Mentally, yeah, she'd gone over. She rubbed her aching noodle, then expanded her assessment.

Benson…her laconic partner…Joe! Where was Joe?

Down a row…Jack—she pulled the name painfully out of the morass inside her head—crouched by Joe, who had landed crosswise the benches in an untidy sprawl. She got her elbows on the benches on either side and struggled to her feet. Yeah, that hurt. Even her eyeballs were whining. She wanted to rush to his side and smooth his pale purple brow. Not gonna happen for a few minutes though. She sank onto the higher bench and rubbed her face.

“How is he?”

Jack turned at the sound of her voice. “He's got a pulse.”

Vi spotted Benson. She'd been tossed backwards like a discarded doll. At least it hadn't burned her face off. “What about Benson?”

Hard to believe any of them had survived that—whatever had happened. Was it gone? Dead? Hiding in one of them?

“She's got a pulse, too.” Jack sat back as Joe stirred.

Jack got his hands under Joe's arm and helped him into sitting position. Joe didn't complain. His chest heaved, and he opened his eyes as if he dreaded what he'd see. Wary turned to pleased when he saw her. He attempted a smile. Vi attempted one back. Dang that hurt. Felt like the hairs on her skin throbbed.

“You are—”

“—not dead.”

Jack looked at Joe, then at Vi. “What happened?”

Joe's expression turned wary beneath the dried mud. Small smoke trails still rose from him and Benson, now that her vision came into better focus.

You are smoking, too.
This came from Wynken.

Good to know.
She smoothed a hand down her hair, which also seemed to have acquired nerve endings.

That did not actually stop the smoking.
Nod added this, a hint of pain still in its voice.

Let's pretend it did.
In high school, she'd wished she were smoking hot. Which just went to show you should be careful what you wish for.
Is that singed smell coming from me?
It felt like both nanites looked away and whistled.

When Joe didn't answer, Jack looked at her.

“I feel like I got hit by lightning.” And apparently looked like it, too.

Jack frowned, then half nodded. “There was a big flash. I've heard lightning can travel pretty far, but wow. It got all three of you?”

Vi's gaze met, and slid away, from Joe's. “Apparently. We were…standing kinda close together.” She looked down. Looked like metal. “Metal conducts electricity.” Bet they'd made an interesting circuit. She quit trying to stand up. “What about the skimmer? What happened to you?”

“I was trying to load another missile when they crashed into the playground. Blew up some swings.”

Vi thought about this for a few seconds. “So no ride?”

“The missile launcher is actually some kind of tank. I can go try to fly it here. If you're okay?” He looked doubtful and excited.

She got that. He was hoping to fly a tank. Another time she might have arm wrestled him for the chance. Because who didn't want to fly a tank? She waved a hand. “Fetch it. Don't crash it though!” she called after him, and quickly regretted it. If there was a molecule of her body that didn't hurt, she hadn't found it.

She and Joe watched Jack until he was out of sight, then looked at each other. In novels and vids, this was the moment for the relief-driven clinch. The kiss. Man, did she want that kiss. Movement wasn't possible at the moment, which was
crapeau
plus. And if what she'd seen during the—whatever that was—well it raised some big questions, which meant that Joe had some explaining to do. And then she'd kiss him. Even if she had to shoot him later, she was getting that kiss. She'd earned it. And not even a huge pile of misunderstanding was doing her out of it.

Benson began to stir. Quickly, Vi asked, “How is Lurch?”

“He is…not himself yet, but he is not dead.”

“Same for Wynken and Nod.”

Joe's eyes widened. “Nod is with you?” She nodded. He swallowed. “Lurch is…very pleased by this news.”

She rubbed at the dried mud on her face. She needed a shower so bad she did not have a metaphor for it. “We need to talk.”

Benson chose that moment to open her eyes. She groaned. “What the—where am I?”

J
ack found
a FEMA phone in the tank and called in, so their backup finally showed up. There were lucky. No messages, no black box signal, no one had known they were missing. Hadn't even been a 911 call about the explosions. Somehow ‘it' had managed a total lockdown. The evil little sucker had been good. Crazy—there was the crush and the creepy love of killing—but she had to give it that much. It was good at being bad.

She'd gotten way more insight into the bad ‘it' during their connected time. It had felt like being in the head of an out of control teen. Unlike Wynken and what she was learning from Nod, this one hadn't tried to learn anything from any humans—or the dog—before killing them. Just the fact it hadn't noticed gender differences was…

…
nanite puberty…
Nod told her.
It was young and had no moral center, no values. It was not sentient the way we are. It was…flawed.

Seriously.
Vi was glad she hadn't known just how on their own they were and what they were up against. She'd needed the hope.

Captain Uncle swallowed the lightning story, though it looked like it got stuck halfway down his throat. And tasted nasty. Benson was in bad shape. Her last memory was of being on duty at the FEMA camp. Something about someone sick in a tent. She went in—then blank. Everyone seemed to think it was an effect of the lightning. Vi had no desire to stop them from thinking that. It's not like there were a lot of options for alternate theories.

Someone had logged Charity Hospital into the database about the time the evil it was trying to fry them, so that's where Captain Uncle ordered Benson, Vi and Joe. Benson got the ambulance skimmer. She and Joe climbed in the back of the SWAT transport, since they were semi-ambulatory. Nothing for them to kick down or shoot, so the SWAT team didn't want to stick around.

Jack looked like he wished he could go with them. Vi didn't blame him. It was a confusing mess. And being the only bird in the skimmer headlights of Captain Uncle's glare? Yeah, not sorry to leave that party even though she wasn't eager to get checked out at Charity either.

Her only hope was the confusion of WTF would muddy the edges of this mess. It sure had muddied them. Joe looked like a zombie. A really cute zombie. Wished she knew how he did that. Couldn't all be Lurch.

If Joe knew why it had failed to kill them or Benson, well, he wasn't talking, and Wynken and Nod had figured out how to mute her out of their conversation. The SWAT skimmer touched down long enough to offload them at Charity's ER entrance. They watched Benson's stretcher port her inside.

Vi wasn't in a hurry to follow. There'd just be more questions they didn't have answers for. Neither, it seemed was Joe.

“You must be, well, relieved. I mean, it's over, isn't it?” This seemed safer than the “what the
crapeau”
semi-relationship talk they needed to have.

“It…appears to be over.” Joe managed part of a smile on one side of his mouth. “I think I am still in the processing, feeling disbelief stage.”

She could understand that, since she was still there, too. And she hadn't been in on the ‘it' hunt for as long as they had. Which was a lot longer than she'd realized. Ire tried to get a foothold, but there still wasn't anywhere that didn't hurt. And she didn't have the energy for mild ire, let alone the serious stuff.

“We should go in—” She said this without enthusiasm, but before Joe could respond, a sleek, black skimmer landed between them and the entrance. The MITSC. The rear hatch popped up and one of the Smiths slid out, holding a weapon that looked incredibly cool. And dangerous. But very cool. Apparently she had just enough energy to feel jealous.

“Please, join us.”

“
Crapeau
.”

“On a cracker,” Joe agreed.

T
he MITSC skimmer
appeared to be piloting itself, as it rose swiftly above NON. Vi had been directed to one bench, next to a Smith, and the other Smith had directed Joe to sit next to him. It seemed an odd choice to Joe.

Indeed.

And it was troubling that they'd last been seen the pair with Afoniki, whose goons had been co-opted by ‘it' for the attack at City Park. The hairs on his neck rose. Joe was pleased to note that this did not hurt. Lurch was gradually dialing back the pain level, though neither of them approached normal yet. He felt his muscles flex, though not noticeably, as the doc program came to the forefront once more. It felt as if the doc program overrode the tired program. Or perhaps kicked it to the curb.

She always trusted her gut.

I lack her gut,
Joe felt compelled to point out.

Relax and maybe you will find it.

Vi appeared relaxed and apparently unconcerned, but Joe knew her well enough to know that she was also on high alert. Her color was better, though she still showed signs of lingering pain beneath the crusted mud. She shifted and the Smith next to him made a minute adjustment in how he held the weapon—that he'd already had pointed at her. The Smith next to Vi had his weapon pointed at Joe.

“Chill, dude. I've got some serious pain issues,” she said, adding some winces to her small movements. “Some of them concentrated in the area currently stuck on this less-than-comfortable bench.”

Joe noticed that her adjustments put both feet more solidly under her, the knees bent just in case leaping were required. Her gaze met his, and he gave a slight, very slight shake of his head. They needed some kind of distraction, and he had a feeling that it wouldn't be easy to distract these two.

They want us kept apart. Not touching. What do they fear? You?
Joe asked Lurch.

It is possible. If they were controlled by ‘it,' if they were drone infested, then they should have reverted to normal. Or died. I wonder…

“What is the old nanite telling you about us?” the Smith next to Vi asked. “It really is past time it died.”

“Excuse me?” Vi looked at her Smith, then at his.

“Doesn't she know?” the Smith next to Joe considered her. “She might be a good host for more offspring.”

Do it. Attack now while they are still young.
Lurch's tone was the sharpest, most urgent Joe had ever heard.