Nobody Gets The Girl (15 page)

"—it," said the Panic.

Pit Geek fell on his ass, flailing around in
the same physical space as Nobody. Veronica was gone, as were the
Thrill and Rail Blade. Nobody looked around, unable to figure out
what was happening. He was in a pink, rubbery chamber, much smaller
than Veronica's living room. The walls were curved and roiling with
a wave-like motion. Large phosphorescent patches on the floor and
ceiling gave the room a dim, eerie light.

"Great," said Pit Geek. "We're in Baby
Gun."

"Boss?" said the Panic.

"Could the two of you have screwed that up
any worse?" asked a disembodied voice. For an instant, Nobody
thought it was the voice of Dr. Know. But the voice had a harder,
rougher edge to it. The unseen speaker continued: "You were
supposed to bring me the target, not kill him. What part of this
didn't you get?"

"He almost killed me," said the Panic.
"Besides, I don't think the bullet hit him. I think Rail Blade
stopped it just before she yanked off my hood. Why aren't we back
at the cabin?"

"I've had a bit of a mood swing. I'm sending
Baby Gun to stomp the hell out of Jerusalem. Rail Blade used her
magnetic quake to get to you so fast she'll be too wiped out to
bother us now. With her on the other side of the planet, we should
have several hours to kick up a real nice war. Your powers will add
to the general confusion."

"Take over Jerusalem?" said the Panic. "Since
when do we care about Jerusalem? That's the bullshit Knowbokov's
been feeding the media."

"That's part of what makes this sweet. He'll
hate himself when he realizes he gave me the idea."

"Let's get up to the head," the Panic said to
Pit Geek. They moved to a tube at one end of the room and
half-crawled, half-climbed into it, ascending its convoluted walls.
Nobody followed, shoving the gun and the mask into his pocket. The
tube had a peculiar smell, like a hot plastic baby doll, and had
the same hard yet yielding solidity of a fully inflated waterbed.
At least the dry surface provided easy traction.

After a very long climb they reached a larger
chamber, in the center of which was a sickening sight. A body was
suspended from the ceiling by a web of pink, worm-like cords that
pulsed and writhed. The body resembled a male fetus, pale and wet,
but huge, perhaps three hundred pounds.

"Yo," said the Panic, tapping his knuckles
against the fetus's huge, distorted skull. "How 'bout a
window?"

In response to the Panic's action, the wall
near Nobody began to melt and swirl, turning into a thin, smoky,
mostly transparent film. Outside this window, and just above it,
Baby Gun's surreal, gun barrel face loomed. Looking down, Nobody at
first thought they were still in Asheville. The landscape was
mountainous. But he quickly realized the hills were covered with
olive trees instead of pines. Instead of the closely packed factory
houses, the city below was built of white stone, with boxlike
houses stacked on top of one another and narrow streets that
twisted and turned like a dusty maze. Wherever he was, the
buildings were crunching to rubble beneath Baby Gun's enormous
feet. People fled in panicked streams as his huge doll limbs rose
and fell.

"Jesus," said Nobody. He was halfway around
the world, trapped in the body of an enormous baby doll, and the
only thing he could think about was Veronica.

Was she dead? Everything had happened so fast
he couldn't be sure. He knew she'd been bleeding. He knew there was
a terrible wound to her throat. Could Amelia and Sarah save
her?

He looked at Pit Geek. Veronica's blood still
stained his chin, and red smears marked the back of his hands where
he had wiped his mouth.

Nobody pulled the gun from his pocket.

He had fired at Pit Geek only moments before.
Had he missed? Was the gun useless in his ghost state? Or was Pit
Geek just impervious to pain, and impossible to kill? He remembered
his first encounter with the foul bum, and the bullet that had
struck Pit Geek between the eyes. Pit Geek still had a hole there,
half concealed by a crusty scab. So, even though Pit Geek was
directly responsible for Veronica's death, attacking him seemed
pointless.

On the other hand, throttling the Panic had
been surprisingly easy and effective, at least when he'd been
wearing the silver hood.

Nobody pulled the hood from his pocket and
studied it. It was made of a fine silver mesh, with the texture and
thickness of nylon. Touching it made his fingers tingle.

Suddenly, a deafening roar staggered him, and
the floor beneath him lurched sideways. Outside the window, a trio
of fighter jets sped away from Baby Gun.

Baby Gun returned fire, with an explosive
motion that knocked Nobody from his feet. Pit Geek and the Panic
also were thrown to the floor. One of the jets exploded into a
fireball.

"Dammit, ya weird bastard," grumbled Pit
Geek. "Give us a warning, will ya?"

"Better yet," said the disembodied voice that
Nobody had heard earlier, "Let's get you into the action."

Before Pit Geek and the Panic could rise,
holes swirled open beneath them. Pit Geek let out a muffled curse
as the floor swallowed him.

Nobody was now alone with the gigantic fetus
that seemed to be the control center of Baby Gun. He wondered, was
this the source of the disembodied voice? Was this strange being
Rex Monday? No one really knew what the uber-terrorist looked like.
Could this thing be the source of so much misery and evil? Was it
responsible for Veronica's possible death?

The hood seemed very stretchy. Nobody pulled
the opening wide and slipped it over the hideous fetal head. The
creature opened its eyes—huge, black circles, faintly visible
through the thin silver web.

It cast its gaze upon Nobody and made a soft
mewing sound as its slobbery mouth slid open. Its proportionally
tiny hands clenched and unclenched, and the pink worm tubes that
supported its body began to coil and kink.

Nobody placed the gun against its head, and
pulled the trigger. The silver sock exploded like a paint-filled
balloon. The floor began to shift. Very quickly, the floor became
the wall, and Nobody was sliding up it, the rubbery surface now
slick with blood. Through the window, the buildings of old
Jerusalem grew rapidly closer as Baby Gun toppled.

A shower of brick and stone burst through the
thin membrane of the window, smashing into Nobody. He blacked out.
He opened his eyes briefly. He could smell smoke somewhere close.
He could barely breathe. He seemed caught in a sticky tangle of
rubber bands. Dim firelight flickered in the distance. Far away, he
heard a series of explosions. Then he lost consciousness once
more.

WHEN NOBODY WOKE
, his surroundings had
once again changed. He was in a soft bed, in a large room. A breeze
stirred the white linen curtains by the window. He sat up, his body
aching. He sported several clean, white bandages on his left arm
and shoulder.

Sarah sat next to him, dozing peacefully in a
large wicker chair. He reached out and touched her thigh gently.
Her eyes fluttered open. Her peaceful expression turned into a
slight frown.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself," she said, a bit grumpy.

"What?"

"You didn't even leave a note."

"Oh," he said. "Sorry. I did leave pretty
quickly."

"And you took my favorite lighter, you
bastard."

"Sorry. You can have it back."

Sarah held up her hand, showing him the
lighter. "Found it in your pants. Dad told you about being God,
didn't he?"

Nobody sank back onto his pillow. "He
actively denied the existence of God, as I remember it. He did
claim to have created the world. He did admit to body snatching
prisoners and turning them into memory banks for his brain. I don't
know, Sarah. These things kind of bother me."

"I know. My father's insane. I don't believe
he really created the world. I think he's some kind of evolutionary
next step or something, some kind of super-telepath, and he's built
this whole God fantasy to cope with it. I can't explain how or why
he has such fantastic powers, or why Amelia and I can do the things
we do. But I've learned to deal with it, more or less. I think, I
hope, that in the balance, my father does more good than harm."

"Oh my God," said Nobody, draping his good
arm over his eyes. "Veronica's dead, isn't she?"

"That woman you were with? The one Pit Geek
killed?"

"She
is
dead."

"Yes. Who was she?"

"She used to be my wife. In another lifetime.
Literally. Oh, God. She's dead because of me."

"No. And she's not dead because I flew
through the window and tried to use my powers on someone I
suspected was immune. She's dead because Pit Geek tore her throat
out."

"But it's because of—"

"Don't," said Sarah. "Don't go down this
path. We can wonder what would have happened if we'd acted
differently, but we'll never know. Dwelling on it will make you as
loony as my father."

Nobody felt numb. He said, "She's not the
only blood on my hands. I killed that... thing. I think... I think
maybe it was Rex Monday."

"Baby Gun? He wasn't Monday. Baby Gun was
some freak who controlled silicon the way Amelia controls iron.
Only he was like completely insane, and saw himself as that
horrible monster, and his powers made that real. You did him and
the world a huge favor by putting him out of his misery."

"I don't feel like I've done anyone any
favors. Christ, I wish I'd never been born. Oh, wait. That's
right."

"I'm glad you were born, at least once upon a
time, Richard," said Sarah.

"Richard. Richard Rogers. That name's
meaningless now. Who was Richard Rogers? Just some nobody."

"Look," said Sarah, rising from her chair,
her voice hinting at anger. "You want to wallow in self pity? Fine.
I can't stop you. I just want to know one thing. You going to run
away again?"

"I don't know. I'll have to think about
it."

Sarah turned away. She walked to the window,
and said, "I understand. But, for what it's worth, I liked having
you around."

Nobody nodded. "I liked being around you.
But, please don't take this wrong, I don't feel terribly romantic
right now. I've watched a woman I devoted my whole life to die and
I think it's going to take a while to get my head wrapped around
that. I wish I'd met you under different circumstances."

"Well, we get what we get. In the end
everything is pointless, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun
along the way."

"I like your attitude toward life," Nobody
said. "It's a kind of happy pessimism."

She shrugged, grinned, and headed for the
door.

"I think of it as fatalistic optimism. Look
me up if you decide to stick around," she said, pulling the door
shut.

The curtains flowed inward as a cool sea
breeze filled the room with fresh air. Nobody lay back and looked
at the streaks of light that played against the ceiling.

"Fatalistic optimism," he said. "Maybe things
will be better when I'm dead."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TRIGGER OF THE APOCALYPSE

Richard found Amelia in the gym again. Sweat
rolled down her bare legs and arms as she ran on a treadmill. The
evidence of the terrible burns she had received weeks before had
vanished.

"Looks like that pink goo does pretty good
work," said Richard.

"My work gives Father frequent opportunities
to expand the frontier of medical trauma treatment," said Amelia,
continuing to run.

"You saved my life, stopping that bullet,"
said Richard. "Thanks. But, uh, aren't bullets lead? How'd you grab
it?"

"I've been practicing with bullets since I
was eight," said Amelia. "A lot of bullets these days have steel
jackets, which makes it easier. The trick is to wrap all of the
lead in a thin shell of iron before stopping them."

"Good trick," said Richard. “You just pull
iron out of thin air?”

“I don’t even need air. My powers worked on
the moon. It’s tough to explain, but I sense potential iron atoms
in the quantum froth underlying all reality. Coaxing these atoms
out where I need them to be is as easy as breathing.”

“Well, you’re better at breathing than I am,
that’s for sure,” he said, watching her run. “You’re barely winded
at this pace. I’d be flat on my back after thirty seconds.”

"Sarah says the woman who died was important
to you," Amelia said. "She says you blame yourself."

"Yes."

"Sarah probably told you it wasn't your
fault."

Richard leaned against the doorway. "Yeah. I
don't know. Maybe she's right."

"Don't listen to her," said Amelia.

"What?"

"There are a million things you could have
done differently that would have produced a different outcome.
You're right to blame yourself."

"Christ," said Richard, walking back toward
the door, running his hands through his hair. "Is this some kind of
reverse psychology? Or are you just wanting me to kill myself?"

Amelia smacked the stop button on the
treadmill and stepped off, wiping sweat from her face. She walked
toward him, locking her eyes on his.

"Make no mistake. I'm also to blame. Much
more than you."

"Look, now I know you're playing head games.
Sarah's right, the one who's really to blame is Pit Geek."

"I could have been quicker to analyze the
situation," said Amelia. "I have a tendency to focus on weapons. I
had my attention on the gun and that high-tech mask the Panic was
wearing. If I could do it over, I wouldn't just stop the bullet. I
would have kept its momentum but changed its trajectory and put it
straight into Pit Geek's head."

"I'm not sure how effective that would have
been," said Nobody. "You know what happened in Washington."