The Imaginary Corpse, page 24
“Me either,” says Golem Jones, fat stone fingers fidgeting with his teacup. “I don’t fight anymore. Not since…” His words slide down into a guttural growl.
“That’s okay too,” I say, as bright in tone as I am bleak in spirit. “Can you two make sure that anyone else the Teatime Man sends here gets the help they need?”
“Absolutely,” Freedom Frieda says, eyes white and resolute.
“I’d never do anything else,” Golem Jones croaks. “I never do do anything else.” Even in the middle of this, he takes time to act comically put upon.
“Thank you,” I say, as the lump forms in my throat. “Then – okay, then…”
I look out over my companions. These are the Friends who took me in from the cold when I got kicked into the Stillreal. These are the Friends who have always stood by me, who have trusted me even when I indulged my witticism addiction at their expense. They signed up for this, and they are ready to help with this.
I let myself take a second to breathe. The next part’s harder.
“So then, about that help we’re getting Breaker…”
“No.”
Yeah, this is how I figured it would go. Miss Mighty is pacing up and down my living room, the rest of the council of tea-and-war watching from the sidelines like we have dynamite strapped to us. At least I can still accurately predict some things.
“But Mighty,” I say, “Dr Atrocity is the only one who can–”
“No,” Miss Mighty says again. Her face drifts into a snarl, a sneer, a frustrated pucker. “There’s someone else. There has to be someone else.” If you look in her eyes, you can see I’ve won this argument already; it’s just about getting to where everyone is comfortable admitting that.
“Mighty,” I say.
“Don’t ‘Mighty’ me! We can’t trust her.”
“No, but we can trust that we’ll all defend ourselves.”
She flares her nostrils, shakes her head again.
“Look,” I say, “the Teatime Man has us all messed up, he has everything messed up. But bottom line, even if we’re evil, or selfish, or whatever, we all like existing. He’s something, maybe the one thing, that we can count on Dr Atrocity for.”
Miss Mighty laughs. It’s not a nice laugh. “You been to visit her recently?”
My back stiffens. Time to pull the pin out of the grenade. “Yeah, actually.”
Miss Mighty stops pacing. Everyone in the room tenses, but the award for most worried goes to either Breaker or Spiderhand.
“Big Business attacked her a couple days ago. Had her strapped in to her own death ray.”
“How did you find her?” Miss Mighty snaps.
“Alibi Lounge,” I say.
She rolls her eyes, frustrated with herself. “The minions always know.”
“Mighty – Miss – okay, look, I want to explain, okay? I was there because I knew I needed to talk to Big Business, and then it turns out I needed to rescue someone from Big Business. Emergency situation, not a casual visit. I would have told you. Okay?”
She twitches, but she nods. We both know I also kind of liked doing it on my own. We are what we were made. “Okay.”
“Great. Thank you. The Doc has been monitoring all the changes to the Stillreal. She knows where all the new Ideas are, she knows where the teacup bits are showing up. She’s how we’re going to get this done.”
Miss Mighty shakes her head. “She’ll turn on us. She’ll twist this to her advantage.”
“I have no doubt.”
Mighty takes a deep breath, cracks her knuckles. She looks disgusted, but more importantly, she looks me in the eye. “I’m going along with this because I trust you,” she says. “But she’s going to turn on us.”
“Won’t it be nice to only be dealing with her, though?”
She stops, and cocks her head, annoyed in that way that says I got it right in one. She scoffs at herself, and smirks, and I remind myself to breathe.
“Great,” I say. “Great. Thank you. Let’s go, then? Before either of us has second, third, maybe fourth thoughts?”
She nods, and leans down to peer out our window, looking for a touchstone to get us over to Avatar City.
“Oh,” I say.
Everyone turns and looks at me. I look at Miss Mighty.
“This part? This part is also going to be dangerous.”
Mighty’s smile almost makes the past few days worth it.
We think to Avatar City through the bell-tower on top of Playtime Town Hall, floating through some medieval city Idea Mighty knows before we hit the big gothic church in the South End. I don’t have time to make a quip before she scoops me up and launches into the sky.
“Where is she?” Mighty asks, already at zero patience.
“The observatory. I’d point to it, but I’m afraid to look down.”
Her brow furrows. “Observatory?”
“The one that looks like a skull from the far side.”
She nods like that makes sense to her, and speeds off over the patchworks of green and brown that make up the Avatar City countryside. We’re over the observatory in seconds, on the ground in half that. We spend more time hesitating outside than we do traveling there.
“Afraid of robots coming out to greet us?” I ask.
Mighty narrows her eyes at the observatory door. “I’m more afraid of the part where they aren’t.”
A lot of reassuring thoughts occur to me, and get thrown away as not actually reassuring. I settle on, “Remember: self-preservation is the trump card.”
“And it’ll trump us too,” Miss Mighty mutters. But hey, she starts toward the door.
The outer door opens without fanfare. The inside of the place is quiet. I pick up humming machinery, the rattle of pistons and gears, but no signs of life. Miss Mighty seems to be having the same problem. She floats ahead of me, looking around like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, and it only gets worse when we get into the main room and she sees the death ray. I wonder how many times she’s been hooked up to that thing.
Miss Mighty turns toward me, scowling. “You getting anything?”
“I–”
The noises from the machinery change; I hold up a paw while I focus on it. The new sound is the soft whoosh of something big traveling at great speed, starting below us and getting closer. I point in the direction I think it’s coming from, and Miss Mighty turns with banked rage to the door now irising open in the wall, revealing a bemused Dr Atrocity.
She stays in the elevator, hands tucked into her lab coat, posture stiff and unrelenting. “Detective Tippy,” she says, with a nod my way. She turns toward Miss Mighty, and her demeanor ices over. “You.”
“Doc,” Miss Mighty says back, way, way too sweet.
One tiny fraction of Dr Atrocity’s mouth tilts upward. “You need my help.”
Miss Mighty’s gloves squeak. Yeah, this is on me now.
“It’s the Teatime Man,” I say, stepping forward. “The Man in the Coat.”
“He’s been getting more active,” Dr Atrocity replies. Her smile grows at my unnerved reaction.
“No kidding,” Miss Mighty says.
Dr Atrocity swivels toward her. I step forward again.
“Your monitoring machine,” I say. “You can trace the teacups he leaves behind?”
“That’s a… simplified, but accurate, view,” she says.
“You can talk to us like civilized people,” Miss Mighty snaps.
Dr Atrocity’s human eye bulges. She looks Miss Mighty up and down, sighs, and lets her shoulders slack.
“You are correct, this once,” she says with resignation. “This is not the occasion for verbal salvos.” She flares her nostrils, tension balling up her face. “Miss Mighty… I do not suppose that under the circumstances you would consider… a truce?”
And like that, all my concern and attention is on my friend.
Miss Mighty grinds her teeth, sighs the same sigh Dr Atrocity just let out, and runs an aggravated hand over her face.
“Yes,” she grunts.
Dr Atrocity smiles. “Good, then–”
“But,” Miss Mighty raises a hand. “But. Truce doesn’t mean forgiveness.” She stares whole murder mysteries’ worth of daggers at the Doctor. “I remember what you’ve done, what you think, better than anyone else in the Stillreal. This fight never really ends. Not until all of that changes.”
Dr. Atrocity gives Miss Mighty a sour, uncertain look, and shrugs like she’s shucking a backpack off her back. “Very well. For now, the war can move to a different front.” She steps backward, opening up space in the elevator. “Come with me.”
I waver on whether or not to come when called. Miss Mighty doesn’t. She zips in and stands right next to Dr Atrocity, the two of them looking the most uncomfortable I have ever seen them.
“Are you coming?” they ask in unison, and turn to each other, baffled.
Did their person do this on purpose? Not a question I can answer today…
Once I’m in the compartment, Dr Atrocity flips a few switches, and we head downward at speed. I feel the world shifting around us, bubbling here, buckling there. It’s making me dizzy in places I didn’t know could get dizzy.
“Been upgrading your elevator?” I ask. “Or did you think I wasn’t properly scared last time?”
Dr Atrocity smirks. The door opens. She marches through without even pausing to let it open all the way. “Follow me.”
Miss Mighty looks down at me. “Now are you getting anything?”
“All I hear is machines. So, maybe?”
Mighty snorts, and follows her nemesis. I’m grateful she’s made the decision for me.
Dr Atrocity leads us down the same cavernous hallway she took me down a lifetime of beatings ago, but with less rock and more steel and rubber. She’s strung cable back and forth overhead, enough to hang an army’s worth of laundry, and connected to an equivalent amount of new machines. The hallway is the source of the humming, a motorboat sound like someone’s drumming on its back. Detective stuff says whatever it’s all powering is huge. Miss Mighty drifts along behind me, judging everything with a negative eye. I just trust and follow. It’s all I have left.
We head down that same dead-end hallway, and Miss Mighty all but hisses when she sees the monitoring station unfold. “How long have you had this?” she demands. She’s trying for outraged, but she’s hitting awed.
“As long as your Teatime Man has been around,” Dr Atrocity replies with relish. She tickles a few keys on the control console, and the screens blink over to nine apparently random Ideas. There’s the crayon-drawn forest I saw last time, there’s the Memory Reefs, there’s an empty apartment in Smile House. That’s what I was afraid of.
“The oneiric infection has spread to Playtime Town,” Dr Atrocity says. “It hasn’t reached Avatar City yet, however. If you’re looking for a place to dig in…”
“I didn’t want them traced so we could hide,” I say, boxing up my terror for later.
Dr Atrocity straightens her posture. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”
“We’re taking the fight to him,” says Miss Mighty.
Dr Atrocity leans against the control panel, a hand to her head. You don’t need special senses to hear the sigh of relief.
“You were expecting this?” Miss Mighty asks, a foot sliding forward, ready to fight.
The Doctor shakes her head. “Hoping.” She sweeps an arm out to indicate the monitors. “The infection is spreading, without regard to whether or not the original Friend entered the Idea in question.”
“He actually entered Playtime Town,” I say.
“But how?” Dr Atrocity asks.
“He seems to be able to track any Friends he or his creator have touched,” I say. “Or maybe that should be creators. Look, I’m less worried about exactly how he works and more worried about making him stop working.”
“A lofty goal. But don’t you think the how might matter in this regard?”
“It’s rarely mattered with you,” Miss Mighty responds, proving bad timing isn’t exclusive to me.
“I don’t break the rules,” Dr Atrocity responds.
“Excuse – no,” Miss Mighty says, hands up. “No, you’re taunting me.”
Genuine concern flicks into the Doctor’s eyes. “I apologize. Habit.” She presses a few more keys. “This Friend does not operate like other Friends do. He is not governed by all the same rules we are. We need to understand how he works if we are to be sure our countermeasures will affect him in the expected manner.”
I know she has a point. I really do. But I’ve also got a brain full of dead friends. “Do you have a way to figure that out? Like… fast?”
Dr Atrocity sighs. “No.”
“Then that pretty much settles that,” I say.
“You make a valid point,” she says without praise. “What is it you wanted me to do, then, if my advice is not to your liking?”
Right. I think about Spindleman instead of what I’m about to say. “Two things. First of all: You can track the teacups.”
“Easily.”
“Can you tell which ones are the oldest?”
Of all the reactions, I am not expecting excitement. “Yes. Yes, I can.”
Miss Mighty snorts. “That was what you were working on before we showed up, wasn’t it?”
“Not for the reasons you think.”
“You were spying on us and hoped we would ask this question?” Miss Mighty says.
“That, too,” Dr Atrocity says with a smirk.
“I need you to find those oldest teacups,” I say, throwing myself between the implied fists. “And I need you to find me some touchstones I could use to get there.”
“Child’s play,” Dr Atrocity says. “But, you said ‘first of all.’ I assume that means you have a second of all?” She curls an eyebrow, making sure we know how clever she is.
And the second Hail Mary… “You have cameras and stuff in other Ideas. That means you can make stuff that lasts.”
“It stands to reason.”
I nod. It’s the only movement I can make aside from panicking at what I’ve got myself involved in. “Can you help a friend of mine build a trap?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Miss Mighty and I think back to Playtime Town in silence, both trying very hard not to let the other know they’re terrified.
Dr Atrocity said yes. She’s agreed to meet us in Playtime Town as soon as the materials are ready, and I’ve agreed to let her into my apartment. Frankly, that’s the least of my worries.
My apartment door has repaired itself, but the noise level inside is higher than ever. I’m pretty sure I know what’s up, but Miss Mighty and I still share an uncertain, hopeful look before we go inside.
Spiderhand’s still there. So are Breaker and Percival. With them, crowded into our living room, are the rest of the Sadness Penguins, Chip Dixon, Officer Cold, Lieutenant Burrows, Azure Armadillo, Farmer Nick Nefarious, and Big Business. Miss Mighty straight-out gasps. I deal with it the way I deal with all new and weird information.
“Golem Jones recruiting drive?” I ask Spiderhand.
Hand-nod.
“Thank you for coming,” I say to the penguins.
They nod in a cascading row, right to left and left to right. I respond with a smile, and move on. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about them, and I’d be underplaying it if I said that worry wasn’t all-consuming. I stomp it down into the depths of my thoughts, and turn to the unpleasant heap of denim we call Farmer Nick.
“Corn wouldn’t stop screaming?”
Nick gives me a dry, unstable look. “This is my fight, too.”
“I’m surprised Fran didn’t come along.”
Nick gives me a look like a funeral procession. “Someone has to tend the crops if I die.”
I could taunt him, suggest ways their conversation came around to who should go and risk their neck. But every addict needs to go into recovery some time, right? “I’m glad you’re here.”
Nick’s face just about turns inside-out.
Next up is Azure Armadillo. He fades back a second as I come near, and I settle for a wave and a welcoming smile. I give him time to settle into a meek smile of his own, and move along to Big Business. He’s been here long enough the floor next to him has sprouted a drab potted plant.
“People dying is unprofitable,” he says, heading off any longer conversation.
“I figured it was something like that.” I make sure I’ve got eye contact. “Listen, this whole thing… it’s going to involve Dr Atrocity.”
Big Business’ smile flickers.
“She’s going to be here in a little while. It’s alright if you have to go‒”
“People. Dying. Is unprofitable,” he says, as unyielding as petrified wood.
“Glad to have you on the team. I have an idea, actually…” I raise a paw. “I’ll get back to you later.”
“Looking forward to our meeting, sport,” Big Business says, and claps me on the shoulder as I walk away. I try not to twitch in pain.
Officer Cold and Lieutenant Burrows are already talking, so that’s one small note of convenience, at least. They turn to me as I approach, the lanky look of disdain and the affable, mustachioed smile both aimed at me. It’s a little intimidating.
“You good to talk tactics?” I ask.
Officer Cold looks to Lieutenant Burrows, gives a ‘you can have this’ shrug. Burrows adjusts his monocle and asks, “What about tactics?”
“The fact that I’m terrible at them.”
Burrows chuckles. “But you’re good at information, yes?”
“That’s sort of where I was driving this conversation, yeah.”
Burrows gives me a grim smile, and nods down the hallway to the bedrooms. “Let’s do this part in private, yes? Officer, do you want to come?”
“Playtime Town doesn’t really do SWAT training,” Cold says, with an uncertain look at his tea. “Or training at all.”
“But you’re a police officer,” Burrows says, not so much doubtful as telling Cold he’s wrong about himself. “Come along. I would appreciate your insight.”
Cold looks at the rest of the party, and follows with a dismissive shrug. “Better than this.”
