Big Superhero Action (19 page)

“Yeah.” The first one flipped her the finger with both hands, said, “Fuck off,
puta
.”

“You three are bounced,” she said.

The Pro said, “Bounced?”

“That means you have two seconds to leave the building.”

“Fuck you,” Ali G said. “We ain’t going nowhere.”

The other bouncers still followed her every twitch. She turned, gave her guys the nod. Skin-headed, steroids dressed in downtown-black, four bouncers hit the floor like human leaf blowers. The problem was gone in ten seconds. The delete button had been pushed and the bouncing was in effect three floors down to the recycling bin.

They were quickly forgotten, trouble already following her nose elsewhere. Sometimes there was more to noise than just noise. This much noise would put up a distraction from worse noise. Like a Siren caught alone.

It was like everyone there was asleep and dreaming the club. She moved through their mass dream picking up speed, collecting the Sirens until they formed a Siren squad checking their handguns. There was no Kafka Kardashian. A quick look at the VIP floor turned up zero Kafka Kardashian.

They ruled out the elevators. In the rear corridor there was a fire door to a rear stairwell. She hung her head over the railing, spotted two people two floors down moving fast. Kafka at gunpoint. A guy behind her. The Sirens bolted down the flights four steps at a time. Reached ground floor. Running feet ahead. Made the next corner, caught a flash of them going out the next fire door.

The fire door opened to the alley behind the club, beer bottle brown-tinted lighting, a line of tan dumpsters. There was a parked Hummer. On the rear window was a stenciled emblem Spanish words in Medieval lettering:
Orden de ejecución de dominación social
.

Toward it, a Latino male kept Kafka moving ahead of an Uzi. Once he got her in the Hummer it was over. The Sirens went after them. The hijacker spun with the Uzi, cut loose at the Sirens. The Sirens pulled Siren guns, returned fire. The paparazzi caught up to the scene, started shooting it. Camcorders cammed it, still cameras shot it. Flashbulbs popped like a second line of fire outside the popping of guns in a firefight. Mermaid Gangster took the lead, worked her way closer to the hijacker, moved along the line of dumpsters.

This turned into a firefight. In a firefight, in the time it takes for something to happen, it’s already happened. It had happened three times already, the bullets dissolving in Mermaid Gangster’s flesh, the wounds healing. The Uzi rattled the dumpsters until she was breathing cordite and the sting of scorched steel. Aiming was hard to do. She kept banging shots, kept metal between her and their shells, tried not to hit Kafka on the ground, the hijacker holding her by the hair, shooting one-handed.

With both hands, Kafka took hold of the hand holding her by the hair, tried to break his hold. She went into her handbag, pulled her siren samurai knife.

The hijacker stumbled to one side. He raised his arm, found the hand sliced off.

Kafka got up with the blade poised, shook the blood at him.

He freaked.

The Sirens laid down more fire. The hijacker ran through the bullets, made it to the Hummer car door, stopped four bullets.

As Mermaid Gangster took aim to bust #5, the Hummer bolted, swerved into her line of fire, cut it off. The Hummer nailed dumpster, slammed cold dumpster steel into her. She sprung away before getting pinned, lunged into the Hummer’s path. She got to running backwards, put a stream of fire at the driver’s face, hitting bulletproof glass. She made it around the first dumpster just before the Hummer blew past like a building on wheels.

Gingiri and Sailor Star fired more dents into the Hummer’s armor and glass until Captain Madame X pumped a hand bazooka, blasted the Hummer off its tires. It slammed, bounced, rolled into a wall.

“Fuck.” That wasn’t a bright red sledgehammer inside Mermaid Gangster’s chest, that was a heart. The dumpsters were a festival of Uzi holes. Her outfit had four new holes. The paparazzi were still shooting everything.

“What the fuck?” Kafka Kardashian shrieked, the hijacker’s severed fist still attached to its handful of hair atop of her head. She tried to pry it loose but the fingers wouldn’t fucking budge.

Others were arriving, bar backs, deejays, club goers. Two cops in police vests. Paparazzi shot them. The Pro bulldozed his way past everyone to get to Mermaid Gangster. He stared like confusion could burn through cement.

“What went down, MG?”

“You want to know?”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

“You got fired.”

T
he Sirens all had families that had lost a twelve year-old girl. Today they were in contact with adult women. The families had left Brutalia to keep their remaining kids from getting mysteriously transformed. If a Siren left town to visit her family, it was as a twelve year-old again. Sirens didn’t do a lot of family reunions.

Gingiri’s mother was the last to leave Brutalia, still calling her Nicole. She had visited Nicole in Atlanta mostly to see her as a twelve year-old again. She took pictures. She wasn’t ready for a move to Atlanta, her nursing job was in Brutalia and she hadn’t saved enough to leave it and it was no time to be jobless. But she was a year from being ready when she would move to Atlanta and get a place where they would live and she would raise Nicole. But Gingiri killed that plan.

“You killed that plan, didn’t you?” Mom said.

“Sorry.”

“I’m leaving anyway. I’d rather be back in Atlanta. I’m not coming back. So…I guess you could visit.”

“I will.”

“Will you be okay?”

“Yes.”

“You become me sometimes don’t you?”

“I just found I can do that.”

“Like…inhabit…my body?”

“Yeah but only with you and the Sirens.”

“You can become me?”

“I can share you with you.”

“You can become another person?”

“Kinda.”

“Jesus Christ, Nicole.”

“I used to be part of your body anyway so you should be used to it.”

“So now we’ve never been both farther apart or closer.”

“That’s well put. I guess so.”

“When you’re me, are the
you
you or are you
this
you?”

“What?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m this me, Gingiri. I can only do it where powers exist.”

“I have to get back to planet Earth.”

“I get that.”

“You’re still a little girl.”

“No I’m not.”

“Do you have a period?”

“Of course, you know that.”

“Do you think about boys…about men yet?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true. I think about men. We’re all grown women. We’re adults. We’re war vets.”

“You grew up too soon.”

“I’m only a few years from this age anyway.”

“What in the world made me bring us to this city? The job I’m giving up anyway, that’s what. But I could stay for you. I could.”

“I’m grown.”

“I see that. So…this is my chance to get back to the real world. I’m a real person and I need a real world. I can’t stay.”

“I can’t leave.”

“If you ever need anything ever…”

“There’s twenty thousand in an account in your name. More later.”

“I told you I don’t take Syndicate money, Nicole. Get a job, we’ll talk.”

It took five minutes to break Mom down enough to agree to take the money but the account had to go. Whatever. By the time Mom stepped on the plane Gingiri was exhausted.

Now she was alone in the world. Except a psychic was never alone. That was the point.

There was My Little Yellow War. He was a psychic-hating psychic. You tried to tell others but they couldn’t get it.

There was
My Little Yellow Virus.

Annie Angel had been a mass dead-whisperer. She was dead-whispering 300 people in Brutalia Park when she was hit by the yellow virus. At a home ever since, unable to speak or tie her shoelaces. Dead psychics started turning up around the city, their neon half-moons switched off.

The Sirens had made a pact to lose their first virginity to the one guy worthy of it, Dr. Peepshow. He was a teenage nudist who only wore a magician’s cape and black cowboy boots. His superpowers were pretzel-like contortion and penis puppetry with no hands. He was in the Circus of Brutalia.

In his red tent Gingiri had been in bed with Dr. Peepshow when in her mind she felt someone’s psyche turn yellow then go dark. She could not help springing from the burgundy sheets, the boy’s confused body, spilling from his tent.

My Little Yellow War was close, its heat searing her naked back. She jumped into a psychic foxhole, pulled herself in deep as the black iron airship of the War passed through her psyche, its searchlights sweeping the battlefield for psychics. She held her breath with both hands. The voice of the War broadcast in her head.

PSYCHICS MUST DIIIIIIIIIIE DIE PSYCHICS MUST DIIIIIIIIIIIIIE DIE PSYCHICSMUSTDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE DIE PSYCHICS MUST DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE
!

Two years later My Little Yellow Virus appeared in Gingiri’s brain with its signature, everything going black, the My Little Yellow War logo flashing in yellow; a chime sounded then her vision switched to yellow as if she wore deep yellow-lensed goggles. The virus took out the part of her brain that activated flight. She had done it a million times but now she had no concept of what was done or how. Now she was falling from the sky straight down, her body turning end over end, the cityscape far below then high above then far below, expanding as she fell toward it. The street high above ran with cars and buses. The street far below ran with cars and buses. She landed halfway atop a city bus, shattered a window, bounced into the street. A second city bus ran its front tires over her. In a wide pool of blood, every bone in her body was shattered, her skull crushed, her face was jelly. The regeneration took three weeks; it took two weeks for her to look at her face.

In Atlanta there was no little yellow war, no little yellow virus to strike her. Now that Gingiri had bought back in, she had to fight the War.

A psychic with the handle
Your Geek Death
had been the war front against Yellow War. White helmeted and goggled, he lived inside his psychic anti-aircraft gun turret out to blast Yellow War from the skies.

Gingiri found him in a psych ward naked and in the fetal position wearing a WW1 doughboy helmet. He wore a colostomy bag but it was tubed into his left ear.

His eyes focused on her face. From his lips came a word loop:
YOU’RE NEXT DIE YOU’RE NEXT DIE YOU’RE NEXT DIE YOU’RE NEXT,…

Yellow had turned Your Geek Death into a booby trap for Gingiri.

Her body collapsed at his feet as it was bombarded with My Yellow Virus. By then she had made a total jump into Mermaid Gangster’s psyche almost knocking her off her Siren cycle.

T
he Corpus knitted his large hands, cracked his knuckles, rotated his neck.

On the cold stones of Brutalia Park, JKM lie nude on his back. The Halo lie beside him nude.

The Halo said, “We can’t do this.”

“We’re here, let’s do it.”

“This is insane.”

“There is no sane way to do this.”

“Not this way.”

“What other way do we have?”

“The real world way.”

“We are not in the real world.”

“This is impossible.”

“We can’t go on being what we’re not. Being what we’re not is killing us. When we become what we are we reach our natural state. Then there will be nothing that can make us unhappy. Even unhappiness will be on top of a deep layer of happiness like a cloud that keeps the sky up. Existence will be ultimately good and true. We will walk through the world like it’s a new art form. And when people who knew us before see us after they will mark the difference in us. They will see a lifelong black cloud gone and a radiance in its place. They will see infectious bliss. They will see us in our natural state and they will finally get us. That this is what we have to become. We never fitted reality, we have to change reality to fit us. And this will be our life’s work. Just to become what we really are. Everything else may still suck. But you will be beautiful. And I will thrive in prison. And nothing will be wrong. And life will be worth living longer. And we will be at big peace. And we will be free to be who and what we are. And to spend the rest of our lives doing exactly that.”

He reached out a hand to hers. Her hand gripped his hard enough to break a nail. Feeling stopped, his hand became a hand-shaped object. The connections to his body were blank. The Corpus had just disconnected his nerves and he was paralyzed. But he was without pain.

JKM gave her one last look then closed his eyes.

He heard her scream.

He could still move his eyelids. His eyes opened upon her screaming face.

The Corpus said, “There is no pain, this is shock. That is why the patient usually faints, from the shock. I told you if you can’t take it don’t look.”

The Halo squeezed her eyes shut as The Corpus’ hands slowly pulled the genitalia from her body. Blood sprayed everywhere. He handled the detached organs like handling a newborn. He set it aside.

Halo fainted, her mouth gaping.

The Corpus toweled his face, thick hands and arms of blood. He stood there. Like he had forgotten how to do this. The sounds of the crowd were drowned by the blood roar inside JKM’s ears. To their audience he and Halo would’ve looked gross and vomitous, clearing out the park. The worst of them would be shooting it with their phones. Assholes today had to shoot everything they saw. It was possible this was being watched on the Internet. You could get a free sex change but zero privacy.

JKM could move his eyeballs. He saw the hand of The Corpus enter his genitalia and slowly, gently, effortlessly remove it from his body. He saw blood spill and flow over his hips.

He saw a hand dipped in blood, two fingers extended, the fingers moving along his abdomen leaving a trail of opened flesh. The fingers stopped between his thighs. The hand reached inside him, pulled out the uterus. His brain blew its fuses, went black.