The Mimosa Effect 2

She waited until I stopped laughing, watched as I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

“I’m going to do you the courtesy,” she said, “of giving you fair warning.  I don’t like being laughed at.  Or lied to.”

“Sorry,” I said.  “Kind of an in-joke.   Seriously though – you want me to be straight with you, how about we make it a mutual exchange?  You already know my name.”

The first thing she’d said to me, after kicking the door open (or, for all I knew, blowing it open with some kind of mutant energy blast), was, “You must be Dozer.”

I’d responded the way you might expect, with more than a few words that would get bleeped on prime-time.  She’d ignored me, pushing the door closed behind her (or as near to closed as it could get, given its newly warped hinges), and tossing a black knapsack on the bed.  Which, given the size of the room, wasn’t as far from the door as you might expect.  It was kind of like a scaled-down version of  a cheap hotel room, minus the TV.  The knapsack landed in a heavy, dent-making kind of way that suggested it was heavier than it looked. 

Now we were both standing next to that bed, facing each other like boxers in a ring.  Despite the fact that I had at least three or four inches on her, I had no doubt that if it came down to a boxing match, she would most assuredly kick my ass out of the ring and down the street.

She narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to see the secret writing scribed on the inside of my skull.

“I’m Nyx,” she said.

“Goddess of sleep and dreams,” I said.  “Makes sense.  So, do you, like, really have super powers, or…”

“The case,” she said, without a trace of humour.  “From the safe. Where is it?”

“Why should I tell you?  For all I know, you’re one of the bad guys.”

“Is that really how you see the world? Good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains?  What are you, five?”

“Eighteen,” I said.  “Next month.”  No one ever seemed to believe me, when I said that.

“Too bad,” she said. 

“Why’s that?”

“Because if we get caught, we could both end up being tried as adults.”

I took a step back.  “Tried? For what?  Stealing some stupid box from an abandoned warehouse?  Christ, lady, you can have it back, if it’s that important.”

She shook her head.  “Not that.  well, yes, that too – eventually.  What I mean is…” She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, like she needed to steel herself for what she was going to say next.

“I need your help.”

I almost laughed again, then remembered what she’d said.  I swallowed it down, and managed a strangled, “You need what, now?”

“You heard me.  There’s something going on around here, and judging by the company you keep…”, jerking her head at Trevor’s snoring, peaceful form, “..I’m guessing you know something about it.”

If only she realized, how very little I really knew, about pretty much everything. 

“Hero number one,” she prompted.  “Ring a bell?”

It was hard to tell, with someone like Nyx, whether it was safer to pretend to know something, or not.  But before I had a chance to lie – or tell something like the truth – the front window shattered, and something black and oblong was rolling through the room.

“Down!” Nyx shouted, and we both sank to the floor, arms over our heads, just as the room exploded in a bright, blank nothingness.

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The whistles and choice words started up as soon as they spotted me. It’s hard to stay out of sight in a wasteland, where anything taller than a stop sign has been reduced to dust and rubble. They call that area between Redford St. and the Bridge “The Dump”, because that’s where everyone tosses their garbage – up to and including burned-out cars, shopping carts, and occasionally, bodies. The river shore stops being a winding stretch of manicured parks and beaches, and devolves into a steep, treacherous slope of gravel and industrial fill.

I don’t normally like doing my thing where other people can see me. Last thing I need is to end up on the front page of some tabloid, or become the next freak-show special on Fox news. Unfortunately, this time I didn’t have much choice.

There were five of them, all swimming in pants three sizes too big, bedecked with garlands of gold jewellery. Two of them had the requisite immaculate loose-fitting sports shirts, open to the navel. One was rocking the shirtless look, complete with shaved chest and oiled biceps, despite the fact that it felt like it might snow at any moment. The other two were bundled into the kind of puffy, shiny jackets only ever worn by 20-something chavs, and 60-plus grandmothers. They all had their heads shaved, all the better to see their impressive assortment of head and neck tattoos.

I think they were hoping that I would turn around and run. They looked like the types to enjoy a good chase before a kill. I gritted my teeth and kept walking, keeping my head up, eyes fixed ahead, as if I hadn’t even noticed them. Thing is, I have to be within a certain distance for my super-special pheromones to work their charm. About as far as a thug with arms like tree trunks can throw a bottle. They all had bottles of various sizes swinging from their hands, not even bothering with the usual half-hearted paper bag disguise.

Close enough meant I could smell their cologne, like a spike-heeled kick to the sinuses. Close enough meant that they could easily have pulled out any kind of weapon they liked, and thrown or shot them at me, to potentially deadly effect. I pushed the fear down, as far down as it would go. Adrenaline sours the poison, lessens its effect.

I don’t need the hand gestures, but some twisted little kid part of me does it anyway, because it’s, well, more fun. Like I could imagine I really have some kind of magical power.

These guys would remember me, whether I, or they, liked it or not. The little girl who turned into a witch before their eyes, black hair blowing in the breeze, the girl who, with a wave of her hands, put them all to sleep.

It’s always tempting, once they’re down, to keep going – take something from them, do something to them. I got by that way for a while, back when things were really bad – stealing cash, credit cards, cell phones, food. Each time, it felt like a part of me was getting dirtier, somewhere deep inside where I couldn’t reach to make it clean, to make it better. So I stopped. Not the stealing part, per se, at least not completely. But I made a rule for myself, that I would never do it to anyone who was helpless to stop me.

I left them with their wallets, and their Rolex watches, and their assortment of blades and brass knuckles. I did, however, take their guns. I know that throwing several handfuls of 9 mm’s into the river probably counts as littering, but I figured the folks upstairs might look the other way in this case.

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It wasn’t Trevor.  Although he did come crashing in a few minutes later, brandishing a taser like a sub-machine gun, shouting “Hands in the air!”  He might have temporarily been able to fool someone with that one, if his voice hadn’t cracked at the end.

The girl didn’t even turn around.  She just rolled her eyes, as if to say, not another one, then made this odd little flicking motion with her fingers.  Trev’s face got this funny, slightly puzzled look on it, and then he was crumpling to the floor.

“What the hell did you do that for?”  I said, before my brain caught up with me and I realized that she hadn’t actually done anything.

Then I remembered what had happened to Reeve, back at the warehouse.  One minute we’re goofing off, playing at being sneak thieves, thinking we’re alone, and then he falls over sideways, unconscious.   I thought at first that he’d fainted, but he hadn’t.  Just fallen asleep, suddenly, for no particular reason.  The kind of thing that usually happens to me.

I ran over to Trevor, to make sure he was okay.  He was curled up on the old brown indoor-outdoor carpet, snoring gently, the taser cradled against his chest like a teddy bear.

“Sorry,” the girl said.  “Force of habit.”

I turned back, looking at her more closely this time.  My first impression had been, well, confusing, to say the least.  She hadn’t looked like much through the door’s peephole – just some chick, looking down, so I couldn’t properly see her face.  I’d figured maybe it was one of Trev’s less than scrupulous neighbours.  Then I was landing on my ass, thrown back as the door slammed open, and she was standing over me.  I hadn’t unlocked the door.  And I had to figure, by the size and build of her, that she hadn’t just used brute strength to kick it off its hinges. 

But all of that kind of fell by the wayside when that part of me that isn’t my brain kicked in.  Whatever angry, scared knee-jerk thing I’d been about to say never made it out.  Reeve would’ve laughed his ass off, to see me struck speechless.  Literally, in this case. 

She still didn’t look even remotely familiar.   But there was something about her that was bugging me, and it wasn’t just the fact that she was simultaneously incredibly hot, and easily as scary as that Terminator chick from the third movie.

Then I got it.  It was the smell, faint and sweet, like a hint of perfume. 

“It was you,” I said.  “At the warehouse.”  We hadn’t been alone after all.  And deep down, I’d know that – I’d just put it off to my usual over-active sense of paranoia.

The girl grinned, flashing all her teeth like a predator.  “And you,” she said, “are the one who broke into my safe.  Care to tell me what it was you found?  And what you did with it?”

“If it’s your safe,” I countered, “shouldn’t you know what was in it?”

She shrugged.  “Maybe.  Maybe not.”

“Hold on,” I said.  “How come you didn’t pull that Sandman trick on me?”

She grimaced.  “I tried.  You seem to be the only person in this damned city that it doesn’t work on.”

I couldn’t help it.  I started laughing, like it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.  And once I got going, it was hard to stop.  She just stared at me, probably wondering if I shared Trevor’s tenuous grasp on reality.  And I gotta say, at that point, I was starting to wonder the same thing.

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