Chapter 20: Secrets and Window Seats

Friday, July 17, 2009, 11:30PM (Cairo), 4:30PM (DC)

“Think of a wonderful THOOUUGHHT! (sharp)
Any merry little THOOUUGGHHT! (flat)
Think of Christmas, think of snow!
(splash-splash-splash, splash-splash-splash)
Think of sleigh bells, off you go
(splash-splash-splash, splash-splash-splash)
like reindeer in the SKYYYY!!!” (sharp)

Tricia closed the bathroom door behind her and shook in revulsion at Annie’s awful singing. She stuck a finger in her ear and twisted, hoping to somehow manually re-tune her voice to something approaching the actual melody. She loved Annie dearly, and Annie had many wonderful talents, but singing was just not one of them.

“WHAT is being killed in there?” asked Quantum Knight as she came in from the hallway.

Tricia chuckled. “I’ve got her in the bath now. She’s in a weird mood. Good, but weird. How’s Joey?”

The hero thought. “He’s doing well. But he’s worried about Scrappy.”

“Oh my god! I forgot! I...”

Quantum Knight held up a hand. “Is there a neighbor that can help, or the building manager?”

Tricia shook her head. “None of our neighbors have keys, and ... technically we’re not supposed to have pets ... so...”

She nodded. “I’ll take care of him. But you’re in charge now. Multiplex will help you arrange a flight and get what you need, and I’ll see you back in DC.”

Tricia sighed and nodded. “Thanks again, for everything. You’re a lifesaver!”

“Oh, I love it when you say that!” Quantum Knight hugged her and then stuck her head in the bathroom. “Annie!”

“AAAAHHH! WHAT!” she screamed from her bubble bath.

“I’m heading back to DC. Going to take care of your dog.”

“Oh! OY! Thank you! Um ... Can you get our purses and my chair too? And my van?”

“Where are they?”

Tricia thought. “Child and Family Services, south-west ... I don’t remember the exact address.”

“I’ll find it,” said Quantum Knight. “Take care, Annie! Have a good flight!”

“A groysen dank!”

Quantum Knight closed the door. She summoned her PDA, and checked something on it. “Good. Clean room is still clean.” She sighed and looked at Tricia. “This is going to be my second six-thousand mile jump today! Wish me luck.” She smiled nervously. “You take care of yourself.”

“Good luck, and you too.”

The superhero nodded and dropped down into a tight tucked-in fetal position, and concentrated for a couple seconds. She suddenly vanished with a loud VVRRAAMMMM, and Tricia was alone in the room.

She sighed and stepped into the hall. She checked on Joey. He was drawing something on the desk, and then she went down to the front desk. “Mr. Hendricks? Quantum Knight had to leave...”

He looked up from his computer. “Yes. She made it home safely. She wanted you to know that.”

Tricia stopped for a moment. “Oh, that’s right.” She whispered to him. “You’re there too.”

He nodded quietly. “I’ve been working on your flight reservations. Your flight is at three tomorrow afternoon, and I’ve found a place where I can get a chair tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.” She cocked her head. “Why so late in the afternoon?”

“I am taking into account your jet lag.”

“Oh. Thank you!” She gave him a sultry smile purely out of habit. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

He smiled back politely. “I am quite fine. You can get some rest, and I’ll take care of everything you need.”

Tricia nodded. “Well, good night Mr. Hendricks.”

“Good night.”

As she returned to the stairs, she stopped and wondered. Something was off, and she finally realized what it was. He had shown absolutely no sexual interest in her. It was something she wasn’t used to. She looked back over her shoulder to catch his eye and give him a coy wink, but he wasn’t looking at her. Shrugging, she returned upstairs.

“HIIIGH-WAAAYY TOOO THE DANGER ZONE! (flat)
HIIGH-WAY TOOO THE DANGER ZONNNE-whoa-whoa-whoaNNNN!!” (sharp)

Tricia shuddered slightly as she passed her and Annie’s room and headed for Joey’s. He was sitting at the desk, drawing, and he looked up at her, smiling.

“Hey. How are you doing?” she asked him.

“Okay.”

She sat on the bed. “I was thinking of taking a quick shower. Do you mind if I use yours?”

Joey grinned. “I don’t mind. Did you need someone to wash your back?”

Tricia gave him a coy smile. “As much as I would love to do that, I don’t think that would be appropriate here. Maybe when we get home?”

Joey smiled and nodded. “Okay.”

She looked at his drawings. “What are you drawing?”

“Oh ... um, I don’t know ... Just drawing what I saw.”

Tricia stood up and looked at some of the sketches. She saw one of Annie floating high in the clouds, but it was entirely scribbled over. “That one was nice.”

“I don’t like that one. I think her shape is off.” He pulled out another sketch. “This one is better. I did a better job on her eyes.”

Tricia looked at the second drawing, She couldn’t really see anything different about how the way Annie appeared in the drawings. The only thing she saw different was that Annie was in a different place. The second drawing had her hovering just inches over the ground inside the cavern where they were fighting the demons.

Memories of the fight returned, and a dark thought crossed her mind. She watched him as he worked a bit more on a sketch. “Joey, I need to check on something. I’ll be downstairs.”

“Okay.”

She left and closed the door, and took a deep breath and gathered some strength. She then went back downstairs and found Mr. Hendricks. “Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have a computer I can use?”

It only took her a couple minutes to find what she was looking for.

She started by checking the obituaries in the Lehigh and Northampton counties of Pennsylvania from 1995 onward. When she found it, she looked up the autopsy report. That led her to the missing persons report.

A few minutes of reading and the full story was laid bare before her eyes, and she sat back in her chair and teared up. “Joey ... no...” she whispered. She thought back over the course of the day. You were so brave today ... We had no idea. She wiped her eyes, and thought of Annie singing in the tub.

“God, forgive me for what I have to do now.”

She printed the reports, collected them up, and returned upstairs.

“THOSE MAG-NIFICENT MEN
IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES! (sharp)
THEY GO UP-TIDDLY-UP-UP!
THEY GO DOWN-TIDDLY-DOWN-DOWN!” (flat)

Tricia entered their room and closed the door behind her. Then she stepped to the bathroom door and knocked gently. “Annie? May I come in?”

“Wait! Let me move some bubbles around! ... Okay!”

She walked into the warm bright bathroom. Annie was in the tub, covered in bubbles, and splashing happily. “THEY ENCHANT ALL THE LADIES AND STEAL ALL THE SCENES, WITH THEIR UP-TIDDLY-UP-UP, AND THEIR DOWN-TIDDLY-DOWN-DOWN!”

“You look like you’re in a good mood.”

“Ahh! I feel GREAT! We have to do this more often! And I don’t even know why I asked Quantum Knight to pick up my chair. OR my van. It’s not like I really need them anymore, is it?” She grinned from ear to ear.

“Annie ... We need to talk.”

“Well, pull up a toilet and talk!”

Tricia sat on the closed toilet seat and sighed. Annie splashed in the tub oblivious to Tricia’s cautionary mood. “Annie ... Look. What I’m going to tell you, it has to stay between us.”

“Well, sure! What is it?” She grinned at her. “Did you meet another superhero?”

Tricia sighed. “Kind of. It’s Joey. He’s been more brave than we realized.”

“Oy! He was amazing today! He made me fly and glow, and he made you strong! He helped us fight demons! He gave me all those powers to get us out of the desert! He ... he pushed that power into Quantum Knight. You know that was hard for him. What a man!”

Tricia smiled cautiously. “Yeah, he was quite amazing. But ... Annie, he fought a demon that the rest of us didn’t see. But it’s been so busy today that we just didn’t even notice it ... I thought it was odd when I heard it, but we were fighting for our lives, and I couldn’t think about it then. But now...” She shifted on the seat, turning to face Annie. “Do you remember back in the caverns, when he first pushed that flying power into you?”

Annie smiled brightly. “Of course! Oh! Even though that thing almost got me, I’ll never want to forget that moment. I flew! I flew straight up!”

Tricia nodded. “You went straight up, almost to the ceiling.”

Annie clutched her heart. “Oy! Yes! I loved it.”

“I bet you did. Did you hear him calling to you?”

“Yeah.”

“He was calling for you to get down.”

Annie nodded. “Yeah, but that thing would have caught me.”

“I understand. But he said something else. Do you remember?” Annie shook her head. “He called you ‘Mom’.”

“What? Did he?”

Tricia nodded. “I didn’t give it any thought at the time. I was too worried about that demon. But yeah. He said ‘Mom. No.’”

Annie shrugged. “Well, I guess he sees me as his mother. Or at least one of his mothers.”

“He may do that, but I don’t think that was it. I think he was thinking about his real mother.”

“Nu? What do you mean? He said he doesn’t remember his mother.”

“I know ... I think he lied to us about that.” She pulled out her papers and read from them. “May eleventh, 1999 ... He would have been three years old at the time. Stephen Harper of Northampton county, Pennsylvania calls the police and reports his wife, Alicia Harper, missing. He found his son Joseph Dante Harper home alone in the back yard. Two days later the police filed a missing persons report.” She looked at another paper. “May nineteenth, 1999. After a week of searching the area using dogs, police receive a report from some kids who discovered a body of a woman in a nearby forest. Detectives on the scene say there is no sign of the body being dragged there, and dogs couldn’t find a trail to her. She was positively identified by her husband. Her body was only about a mile away from her house.”

Annie gasped.

“Coroner’s report said that there was no sign of an attack or sexual abuse. The body was partially eaten by animals, but from the ways the bones were broken, they said cause of death appeared to be deceleration trauma.”

Annie blinked. “Deceleration trauma? That’s...”

Tricia nodded. “She fell. Straight out of the sky. No trail for the dogs to follow ... You know what happened, don’t you?”

Annie’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“He’s three years old, and he has the power to push super-powers into those he loves. Who does he love? Who does he love more than anyone else when he is three years old? Who loves him more than anything else?”

Annie shut her eyes and shook.

“You can see what happened, can’t you? He loves his mother, and one day he pushes a power into her. He makes her fly! And what does someone do when they suddenly learn they can fly? What did YOU do, Annie? You went as high as you could! You zipped and fluttered around, moving as far and as fast as you could, exploring the ability. And you loved it! It’s your dream come true! ... And so did she. She did the same thing you did. And who could blame her? But the big difference is, you were trapped in an underground cavern, and couldn’t go very far. She on the other hand wasn’t underground. She was outside. There was nothing stopping her.”

“No ... Oh no...” Annie shook.

“Where do you think she went? How high do you think she got? She’s in the air! She laughing, and singing, and swooping, and living this dream come true! And then ... Annie, you know his powers are only temporary. We’ve both felt it. And when the powers run out, they don’t slowly die away. They don’t give you a warning light. You don’t feel anything happening. They just suddenly die. But did you think she knew about this when he was three years old? Did you think they knew how long the power would last?”

“Khas ve-kholileh! No...”

“She was flying, and then she fell. No warning. She hit trees on the way down. They ripped her skin and broke her bones, and then she hit the ground. She died alone in the middle of a forest.” Tricia wiped a tear away. “And the worst part is, he knows. He knows what happened. He remembers it.”

Annie looked at Tricia in shock. “How can you be sure?”

Tricia was tearing up. “He was terrified of you flying. He was screaming at you to come back down, because he knows that his powers are temporary, and how addicting the powers are. And when he finally got a hold of you, he grabbed onto you and would NOT LET GO! And you were bitching at him to let go of you and he wouldn’t! He didn’t want you to fly!”

Annie sat in silence.

“Annie! Think back to what all happened this week! Do you remember how easy it was for him to make his dog weightless? But then later on when he was pushing powers into us for the first time, he says he can’t make you fly because it’s too hard? He was lying! He was trying to protect you! And the nightmare! Do you remember that? He pushed two powers into me. He made me ice-up, and he made me fall onto the ceiling! And we knew he was dreaming about his dad burning to death, and that explained the ice, but you asked him if his dad was falling too. And he said ‘no’, and then he said ‘yes.’ The ‘no’ was the correct answer. His dad wasn’t falling. His MOM was falling.”

Annie was tearing up, and she shook her head. “No ... Nebakh...”

“Don’t you see? He killed both of his parents with his abilities. And he knows it! And I don’t think he ever told his father about how his mother died. And I don’t think his father ever tried to figure it out. Who knows? Maybe he did! Maybe that’s what drove his father to try and be a superhero, to restore some balance in his life, to protect people because his wife didn’t get help when she needed it. But this secret Joey holds, it’s his darkest secret. It tears at him. It terrifies him!”

Tricia knelt down next to the tub and reached out to her friend. “Annie ... You know what this means to you...”

Annie shook her head defiantly. “No ... Don’t do this to me...”

“Your dream. It’s his nightmare. You know you can never...”

“NO!” she screamed. “No! Don’t!” Tears rolled out of her eyes, and her face screwed up in pain.

“ ... ask him to...”

“DON’T DO THIS TO ME!” she pleaded.

“ ... make you fly again.”

“NO! DON’T ASK ME THAT! PLEASE!” She was sobbing.

Tricia took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Annie! Listen to me! You have to do this! You can’t ask him! He’s terrified of it.”

Annie was crying and she turned her head away from Tricia. “Stop it! Please! Don’t do this!” She fought and slapped at Tricia’s arms. Tricia refused to let go of her.

“Look at me! Annie!” She grabbed her chin and twisted, forcing Annie to look in her face. “I know this is hard for you. I know that this is what you want. I know how happy flying makes you, but it’s tearing him apart!”

Annie screeched and slapped at Tricia’s arms. “NO!” she screamed, sobbing and crying. Tricia held onto her firmly.

“I know how hard this is for you.”

“NO YOU DON’T!” she yelled, crying. “You don’t know what it’s like! You don’t know what my life is like!”

Tricia was crying too. “You’re right. I don’t know what you go through. I’m here for you every day and I’ll never really know what you’re feeling. But this isn’t about you! You said that to me once. You said that this wasn’t about me, and you were right. Well now I’m saying it to you. It’s not about you. It’s about Joey! He loves you, and he’s terrified that if gives you what you want, you’re going to kill yourself with it.”

Annie shook her head, crying and bawling. “No, I won’t ... I promise I won’t ... Please don’t take this from me...”

“You can’t have it. The powers are addicting, and they are corrupting. When you were flying, I’ve never seen you so happy, and I’ve never seen you so selfish before. He was trying to protect you, and you were trying to fly off and play. Annie! You KNEW the power was temporary! But did you think about that any time? Did you? Did you even ONCE think that you shouldn’t fly so high because the power would suddenly go away, and you would fall?”

Annie’s face screwed up. Tears flowed from her eyes, and she shook.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know, and I don’t blame you for not thinking about it. Flying must feel wonderful! But you KNOW how dangerous it is. And Joey is terrified of you falling. He’s in his room now, drawing pictures of you flying. There’s a beautiful one of you soaring in the clouds. You look gorgeous in it. He knows that this is your dream. But he scribbled all over it and drew another one of you just six inches off the ground. That’s the one he likes, where you get to fly, but you’re not going to die when you fall.

“Promise me you won’t ask him to make you fly again! Not even for little things, like getting in and out of the tub. He’s so scared, and he’s been trying to be so brave all day today. But we are taking care of him, and he needs time to come to terms with this. He needs to work this out himself, and the last thing he needs is another person he loves to constantly beg him to give her powers. Annie! Promise me you won’t ask him to make you fly again. Promise!”

Annie was shaking and crying, and she leaned her head down towards Tricia and nodded. She tried to speak but couldn’t. She lay her head on Tricia’s arm and sobbed loudly, and Tricia held her friend tightly and cried with her.

The column of black smoke flowed against the wind as it tore across the desert, leaving a dark trail of sooty fumes in its wake. Endless sand dunes flowed across the ground, providing no features or landmarks, yet the ink-like jet of vapor raced across the morning sky, searching, scouting, and examining, following a trail imperceivable by human senses.

It stopped and spiraled down, an obsidian tornado digging into the soft sand. Twists and tendrils of smoke solidified, forming a human figure. Shadows obscured all features of his face and body, and wafts of murky mists flowed over him, forming dark robes and a hood.

The eyes appeared from underneath the hood, forming twin stars of pure white light penetrating from the pitch. He stared at the ground.

“Cursed place. The stench of the vile saturates the good earth.”

The figure gestured with one onyx hand and a whirlwind of inky smoke emerged from his sleeve. His cloak barely rippled with the current of air, but the whirlwind tendril tore into the ground, burrowing and scattering the sand in a wide arc as it dug into the dunes.

An explosion thundered in the sky, and the dark man looked upward. “Ah. The sonic boom that heralds the arrival. Would this one learn the ways of stealth one day?”

The glowing figure in the sky flipped. Brilliant jets of flame erupted from the hands and feet, providing a retro-active thrust as it decelerated. It dropped, scattering sand as it descended. It was an androgynous human form, unclothed and genderless, its skin a thin glossy transparent membrane covering a solid mass of circuitry, metals, cables, and moving lights. It hovered a meter over the ground and tilted its head towards the dark figure.

“Protocol.greetings(‘DarkMyst’);” said the glowing figure.

DarkMyst bowed. “And greetings to you, the Hyperion.”

“GlobalPositioningSystem.current(‘self’) returns {28° 14’ 25.31"N, 27° 39’ 4.29"E}; CompareCoordinates(Report(‘QuantumKnight-2542’, ‘GPS’)) returns MarginOfError(2.21e-6);”

“I assume this means you believe we are in the right place.”

Hyperion was expressionless. “True. Query(DarkMyst.response(‘Concurrence’));”

“This place is tainted with the malodor of the demon spawn,” the dark figure spat. “I do concur.”

Hyperion dropped to the bare rock which DarkMyst had cleared, and landed gently. “Commence(investigation);” it said. “SonarMapping.initiation();”

A loud explosion ripped under Hyperion’s feet. The figure stood still with no expression, and a moment later a hologram emitted from its eyes. A three dimensional analysis of hollowed chambers connected by a network of tunnels was displayed in the glowing image. Many of the chambers appeared thin.

DarkMyst approached and studied the figures. He pointed with a black finger into the display. “The Chamber of Travel is destroyed. The Chamber of Thought is collapsed. The Chamber of Labors, buried. The Chambers of Memory and Pleasures are intact, but cut off. Here ... The Chamber of Digestion appears unharmed. That is unfortunate. The demon pets still live. She may yet still be.”

“Report(‘QuantumKnight-2542’, Analysis’) returns...”

“I know what she said. But I will not believe Desdemona is dead until I hold her black lifeless heart in my hands and feel her cold blood drip from my fingers.” The dark sorcerer strode away from the pit where Hyperion stood. “Omega Man was a fool to toss her body into the ocean.” He stopped when he reached the top of a dune and turned to the android. “Start digging!”