Existentially Challenged, page 28
“Clearly, there is a lot of . . . popular investment in the outcome of this event,” he said. “Both participants have requested to be allowed to make a public statement before the competi—I mean, test.” He felt his fists clench. “I will invite them to do so now. I would like to stress, beforehand, that I want this morning’s events to take place in an atmosphere of mutual respect, and with all the dignity warranted by the occasion.”
“All right, Miracle Mob!” cried Miracle Dad as he bounded onto stage waving both hands. “Who’s ready to piss off Jesus?”
48
Even with the auditorium completely full, crowds were still packed outside the Pelican Theatre at both entrances, trying to catch a glimpse through the open doors or holding out hope that some unwary person might make the mistake of leaving their seat to use the bathroom.
Adam, arriving from the hotel at a full sprint, stopped when he reached the edge of the crowd. He hopped from foot to foot, looking for an entrance point from which he could politely plow his way through, but it was hopeless. It was like trying to push a tomato through a keyhole.
Instead, after a searching look around, he headed for a gray, unfeatured emergency door that was doing everything in its power to be unwelcoming to passersby, and after bursting through it he found himself in the alleyway that led to the theater’s rear entrances. Dumpsters, pipework, and old shipping crates roamed freely, safe in the knowledge that they weren’t expected to look appealing to a modern public the way the rest of the theater was.
Adam found an unlocked door and was reassured by the sight of cold cement floors and unfeeling brickwork. Nobody was around. He was in the maintenance part of the theater behind the main stage, which nobody usually needed to see except technicians and actors, whose opinions on decor apparently didn’t matter much.
He checked a few doors, and after finding a couple of unused dressing rooms mainly being used to store enormous cardboard cutouts of space heroes from the last time the complex had hosted a science-fiction convention, he found a stairwell leading down to the basement.
It was only when he had thundered halfway down the steps two at a time that he noticed that the basement lights were all on, the bare light bulbs really bringing the sickly unpleasantness out of the yellowing paint on the walls. Someone had gotten here first. He stopped dead on the middle step with a noisy clatter of footwork, then carefully tiptoed the rest of the way down.
The tunnels down here were even less welcoming than the floor above. The distant noise of the crowd in the auditorium was like the low, barely audible moans of a submarine hull as it descends to a depth it has never been officially rated for. An ancient wooden sign on the nearest wall pointed Adam in the direction of the trap room, and he began to follow.
He turned a corner and stopped. The way ahead was blocked by a darkened silhouette, standing with arms held out in a way that suggested the exact opposite of a friendly embrace. Adam flinched, and his startled instincts activated his special vision, obscuring the figure in front of him with the kind of bright blue smear he associated with pyrokinetics.
He shook his head to dispel it, just in time to see his attacker’s hands begin to glow orange.
Immediately, a keen instinct in the center of his mind suggested that he wet himself and cry. Then another, even keener, instinct took control of his legs and made him dive sideways into the wall. He only discovered after the fact that the wall contained a door, but he wasn’t one to question providence.
He threw himself into what was almost certainly a laundry room—going by the way his head bounced off the circular window of an ancient front-loading washing machine—just as a rectangular mass of flame thundered along the corridor like a speeding train down a tunnel.
He slammed the door closed behind him and began looking for things to barricade it with. There was nothing to be found but multiple washing machines, far too heavy for him to move in time, and a prop that must have been left over from the last science-fiction convention. Some kind of plastic alien rifle that had had its last shreds of dignity spray-painted away to resemble a specific gun from Interstellar Bum Pirates or whatever. Useless as a weapon, but it might make someone pause for thought.
Adam grabbed it and pinned himself against the wall beside the door, aiming the barrel of his fake gun.
His magical senses reported that the blue smear was still in the corridor outside, moving unhurriedly toward the laundry room. Then they stopped and appeared to be staring at the door handle, making no effort to reach for it.
After a few confused seconds, the one sharp instinct in Adam’s mind came through again. Hey, it said. The interior walls down here seem a bit flimsy, don’t they?
Adam was already flinging himself to the ground when he noticed the section of wall that his head had been touching begin to sizzle and turn glossy. A moment later, he was showered in paint flecks and plaster dust as another gigantic fireball burst through, sailed over him, and caused a severe amount of future inconvenience to the next person who needed to do laundry in this room.
Adam shook the debris off his face and saw his tormentor looming through the dripping hole they had made in the laundry room wall. They were wearing a motorcycle helmet that concealed their features and appeared to be quite a petite person physically. But then they raised their hand to send another blast and became, to Adam, the size of the entire universe.
Then they hesitated, cocking their head to one side. “Is that a water pistol?” they asked, in the strange overlaying voice of a person of dual consciousness.
Adam glanced down at the plastic gun that he was still aiming at his attacker. “You wanna take that chance?” he asked, voice quavering with adrenaline.
“I can see the little valve where the water goes in.”
Adam took another look and noticed a stopper at the base of the bulbous thing he had taken for a futuristic magazine. “Maybe it shoots poison,” he tried.
“Hey!” said a new voice, coming from the direction of the stairs. “I found us breakfast. They had a bunch of those mini cereal boxes in the hotel restaurant. Do you want the Shredded Wheat or the—”
“Victor?!” yelled Adam, sitting up.
Victor Casin appeared at the shoulder of the person in the motorcycle helmet, carrying miniature cereal boxes in each hand and a couple of pastries under his armpits. “Adam?! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Erm, I was just . . . getting murdered, by this person, I think,” said Adam.
“Story checks out,” said Leslie-Ifrig quietly.
Victor glanced back and forth between the two of them, confused. “Did you join the cult?”
“What? What cult?” said Adam, getting back to his feet.
“The . . . fundamentalist cult,” said Victor. “The ones running this contest thing.”
Addressing them through the dripping, sizzling hole in the wall was starting to feel awkward, so Adam shuffled to the side and let himself through the door back into the corridor, keeping his hands in plain view. Leslie-Ifrig kept one hand primed and aimed at him throughout. “Er,” said Adam. “This is a DEDA event. DEDA is running it.”
“What?!” Victor turned to Leslie-Ifrig. “Is that true?”
Leslie-Ifrig clicked their tongue. “You don’t work for them anymore anyway, so what does it matter? We’re just making sure no one gets into the trap room.”
“We’re trying to get to the trap room because Modern Miracle is about to kill someone in there!” pressed Adam.
“Is that true?” repeated Victor, still staring at Leslie-Ifrig.
“I dunno, I don’t keep their agenda for them,” said Leslie-Ifrig sulkily. “I just guard things they tell me to guard.”
Victor was rubbing his eyes, trying to get his thoughts in order, when Alison appeared at the far end of the corridor, having found an alternative staircase. “Adam?” she called, jogging forward. When she noticed the others, she froze, with a look on her face like that of a shrew barging into an owls-only changing room. “You!”
“Oh, hey,” said Leslie-Ifrig, sticking out their other hand to keep both her and Adam covered.
“You were at Worcester!” cried Alison. “You tried to kill me!”
“Kinda assumed I had,” said Leslie-Ifrig, confused.
“So that was you?” said Victor. He was trying to glare Leslie-Ifrig down and was getting more and more frustrated from the way they kept dodging eye contact.
“I never said it wasn’t,” they mumbled.
Adam had been watching in a state of complete confusion, but the way the two pyrokinetics were interacting made something click inside his head. “Oh! You’re the archnemesis I’ve heard so much about. But . . . why are you working together?”
Victor made a frustrated hissing sound through his teeth. “You said Modern Miracle was being challenged by mad Christian fundamentalists,” he said, eyes flaring.
“I said mad Christian fundamentalists or something,” corrected Leslie-Ifrig.
“You said this was one of those things where archenemies have to work together against the bigger enemy,” said Victor accusingly. “It’s not that at all, is it? It’s just straight corrupting me.”
“Vic-tor,” wheedled Leslie-Ifrig. “Why does it matter? You keep saying you hate the Department. You hated the work. You hated how they only wanted to use you to blast things and then tell you off for blasting things. You hated the weird smell in the cafeteria fridge.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a pretty weird smell,” said Alison.
Leslie-Ifrig took their helmet off and gazed piteously into Victor’s eyes. “I thought I could show you how you could be free of all of that,” they said softly. “That . . . you don’t need to think of your power as this . . . heavy thing that weighs you down. It’s a gift. It can make you fly.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Victor. “Let me get this straight. You know I hated being used as a weapon by the Department. And your solution, to get me to move on from that, is to . . . let someone else use me as a weapon?”
“You’re your own weapon now, Victor,” said Leslie-Ifrig.
The air between the two of them seemed to be literally crackling. “And what if I don’t want to be any kind of weapon?” said Victor.
Leslie-Ifrig clicked their tongue again. “What else can we be? Barbecue lighters?”
“Um,” said Alison. “We actually need to be getting on with something, so perhaps we could leave you to your conversation . . .”
She took a single step in the general direction of away, and Leslie-Ifrig’s head snapped around. Their arm came up again as the air between them and Alison began to waver with heat haze.
Victor also snapped out an arm, grabbing Leslie-Ifrig by the wrist and slamming it against the wall. Pyrokinetics didn’t actually project fire out of their hands—it was just a mental technique for directing it that skilled ones could learn to do without—but the surprise was enough to break Leslie-Ifrig’s concentration. The flare fizzled out.
“Look, just go do the thing you came down here to do,” said Victor, glaring at Alison.
“Okay,” she said, adding, “Thanks!” before trotting away.
“Thank you, sorry, ’scuse me,” said Adam as he squeezed through the narrow gap between Victor and the wall.
“Right,” said Victor. He turned back to Leslie-Ifrig, and his words died when he noticed that his face was mere inches from theirs. “Erm. Right.”
“Victor,” said Leslie-Ifrig chidingly.
“Leslie. Ifrig,” said Victor.
He had become momentarily lost in their one human eye, but he was stirred from the moment by a sensation of pain. He looked to his hand holding Leslie-Ifrig’s wrist and saw the heat haze rising again.
“Victor,” said Leslie-Ifrig again. “It’s not working out. I think we should try to kill other people.”
49
“We beseech you, oh lord,” intoned Pastor Barkler, his eyes reverently closed. His voice would have filled the theater even without the lapel mike. “Shine the light of your infinite mercy upon your daughter, Ethel.”
“Hello, dear,” said Ethel, his elderly patient. He had placed his hands over her eyes, but she was smiling throughout.
“We beseech you, oh lord, to cast the demons of pain from Ethel’s earthly form,” continued Barkler, shuddering with devotion. “Out! In the name of the lord you are cast out!” He placed one palm over Ethel’s forehead and slapped it with the other.
“Ooh, that’d be nice,” said Ethel, tottering.
“We should let the winner of the contest offer to heal all the patients who take part,” muttered Richard Danvers, watching from the wings. “I worry this will seem in questionable taste otherwise.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sumner, standing beside him and mimicking his posture. “Do you . . . do you think he actually believes he can do it?”
“Hm.” Danvers had a finger to his lips.
“I mean, you see a lot of these faith healing churches on TV where the priest is really slick and asking for donations, and you can tell that they know it’s a scam,” continued Sumner, emboldened in his attempt to be chummy with the boss. “But Barkler . . . well, I guess he wouldn’t have let it come to this if he didn’t really believe he could do it.”
“Mm,” muttered Danvers uncomfortably.
“It’s like those guys who say they know exactly when the world is going to end, and then get in tons of debt.” Sumner attempted a laugh that died swiftly when nobody joined in. “You have to wonder, do they listen to their own followers too much and forget they made it up, or are they just naturally crazy?”
“I feel uneasy about mocking anyone for deeply held beliefs,” said Danvers, from the side of his mouth.
“Oh yes, of course, sir,” stammered Sumner, restraightening his posture hurriedly. “I was just. You know.”
A smattering of applause from the pro-religion half of the audience, as well as the way in which Pastor Barkler was standing arms aloft like a totem pole in a high wind, suggested to Richard Danvers that the ritual was complete. He stepped back onto stage. “Thank you, Pastor,” he said, before addressing the smiling old woman in surgical garments. “How are you feeling, Mrs. Radcliffe?”
“Oh, just fine, thank you, dear,” she replied. “How are you?”
Danvers gestured to the paramedics who were waiting beside the makeshift medical laboratory in the wings, and two of them hurried over to take Mrs. Radcliffe’s arms. “We’ll have you medically assessed as soon as possible. It’s time for Modern Miracle’s turn.”
“The lord has spoken,” said Pastor Barkler ominously, before turning and striding offstage to join the small cluster of pale, undernourished figures in black that were his entourage.
The moment they were out of public view, Miracle Meg came onto stage carrying a stool with a businesslike air, set it down at a very deliberate spot near center stage, and primly took a seat. Miracle Dad appeared at the same time, waving with both arms. “All right, Miracle Mob!”
Danvers waited politely for the cheers from the audience to die down. “Bearing in mind that you have already addressed the audience . . .”
“Oh, right. Sorry, boss.” Miracle Dad turned to Danvers, offering the audience one last cheeky wink and roll of the eyes.
“I believe your patient’s initial medical check is just wrapping up,” said Danvers, eyeing the wings. “What do you need them to do?”
“Just have a seat or kneel in front of Miracle Meg, and let her do her stuff. Easy-peasy.”
“Right. Just sit.”
“On the prayer mat,” added Miracle Dad, turning back toward the wings for a second.
Danvers looked down. Miracle Dad was now holding a thin rectangular plastic mat about a yard across. It was printed colorfully with the words “Man’s Best Friend,” and above that were two black circles, apparently designated for a food bowl and a water bowl.
“Prayer mat,” repeated Danvers.
Miracle Dad jiggled his head toward where Pastor Barkler and his followers had left the stage. “Well. We don’t all get tax breaks, do we?”
50
Adam and Alison made it into the trap room just as a lively and quite literally fiery exchange of views commenced in the tunnels outside and yanked the door closed behind them. A moment later, a couple of jets of hot air puffed out from under the door and through the keyhole.
“Is Victor going to be all right?” asked Alison.
Adam shrugged. “I think he’ll need some space, but he’ll eventually be ready to start meeting new people.”
Alison blinked. “I meant physically.”
“Alison?” said Rana.
The trap room was the area directly under the stage, the destination for many a magic act participant through the ages, but it had been a long time since the Pelican Theatre had had that kind of booking. Currently, the room was mainly being used to store items left behind after cosplay contests—boxes full of random sci-fi props, loose bits of plastic armor, the occasional massively impractical hat.
It also contained, at that moment, Rana and Miracle Mum, who were both sitting on a wooden bench in the middle of a space that had been cleared in the debris.
“Adam?” added Rana, frowning at the two newcomers. “What are you doing here?”
“Rana, you have to get away from her,” said Adam carefully as Alison tried to shrink into the background. “She was about to force you to use your powers.”
“What?” Rana looked to Miracle Mum, who was sitting with shoulders hunched and legs crossed and seemed to be generally trying to be as small and unassuming as possible. “Are you?”
“No, I . . . wasn’t going to do that,” said Miracle Mum quietly.
“She says she wasn’t,” said Rana.
