Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (24 page)

TWENTY

I keep that part to myself
and instead give my friends a rah-rah
we can do it
rally speech, hoping
it will motivate us to figure something out. Someone out there has answers; we
just need to find that person.

Almost immediately, we’re
hit with inspiration: Missy’s doctor. It’s admittedly a longshot, considering
all the doctors were kept as far out of the loop as possible, but we’re short
on options.

Missy gives us her doctor’s
office address so Sara and I can pay her an official visit. The others head to
Matt’s house for some hardcore Googling. Before parting ways, Matt uses his
gloves to bring me and Sara our outfits so we can present ourselves
appropriately — and hey, maybe we’ll get to change in an elevator again. That’s
always fun.

The office of Dr. Elaine
Hemmings is all the way at the north end of town, which means we get to ride
the bus into battle once again (mental note: One of us needs to get a driver’s
license, stat. Like, yesterday).

We arrive at the small
commercial complex that houses Dr. Hemmings’ office. It’s a collection of strip
mall-like buildings scattered around a central parking lot. Most of the
individual units belong to doctors and lawyers, with a state representative’s
district office thrown in for variety. We start wandering around, looking for a
semi-private place to slip into our super-hero garb. We end up sneaking into
the woods in the back of the complex because, you know, dignity.

“Now what?” Sara asks. “Do
we just walk on in?”

That’s exactly what we do.

It’s apparently a slow day
for Dr. Hemmings, because the only people in the waiting room are a mother with
her daughter and pair of receptionists. The women regard us with understandable
bemusement, while the little girl finds us absolutely fascinating.

Long story short: The Hero
Squad has enough of a reputation that the receptionists let us right in to see Dr.
Hemmings, who proves entirely forthcoming about her role in Project Moreau —
forthcoming, but ultimately useless because she has no idea what we’re talking
about. Sara confirms by way of a quick telepathic scan that she’s being
truthful with us; Dr. Hemmings wasn’t in on the project.

It makes sense, in
hindsight; why pay good hush money to a doctor to keep track of Missy’s
development when the head of Project Moreau can do it personally?

We get to Matt’s and find
the Google party in full swing: Everyone has their laptops out and they’re
furiously typing away, but their progress report is no better than ours.
“Project Moreau” isn’t generating any hits, which isn’t surprising, so we start
shooting in the dark, running searches on Dr. Hamill, Missy, Buzzkill Joy,
genetic engineering projects at Boston University, genetic engineering projects
for the government and for the military — we hit every possible base, run every
conceivable term through almighty Google, and all we get for our efforts is a
big bucket o’ nope.

“We’re missing something,” I
say, thinking aloud, “something small but important.”

“Like what?” Matt says.

“If I knew that, Matt, we
wouldn’t be sitting here like a bunch of idiots fumbling around in the dark,
would we?”

“Jeez, don’t have to bite my
head off about it.”

“Yeah, because you’ve never
lost it at any of us for no good reason,” Sara says.

Matt’s about to shoot back
when the front door swings open, and on instinct we all shut up and act like a
group of normal high school students diligently doing our homework. We don’t
have to maintain the charade for long, because a new and perfectly legitimate
target for his ire appears behind his mother.

“Oh. Hello, kids. Didn’t
know you’d be here tonight,” Mrs. Steiger says.

“Everyone,” Mr. Steiger
says, squirming.

Steiger Senior and Steiger
Junior lock eyes like a pair of gunfighters in an old Western getting ready to
spray lead.

“What’s
he
doing
here?” Matt says.

Mr. Steiger looks to his
wife, who says, “Your father’s coming home.”

Matt leaps to his feet,
dumping his laptop to the floor. “He’s WHAT?!”

“Not necessarily for good,”
Mrs. Steiger says quickly, “but we need to talk about...what happened, and the
best way to do that is if your father is home. That way we can
all
talk about
—”

“What is there to talk
about, Mom? He cheated on you!” Matt says, leveling a damning finger at his
dad.

“Kids,” Mrs. Steiger says,
“I need you all to leave. This is a family matter.”

“We don’t have a family
anymore,” Matt spits.

“Kids, go. Now.”

We hastily scoop up our
stuff and hustle outside, but Matt doesn’t wait for us to clear the room before
laying into his parents. Days’ worth of pent-up anger, frustration, and
resentment pour out of him, as fast and as violent as a burst of machine-gun fire.
We take the driveway at a run to get away from the escalating fight as quickly
as possible, but the unique cacophony of a family tearing itself apart stays
with us until we’re a quarter-mile down the road.

Joy glances at the little
clock in the corner of the laptop once owned by Dr. Lester Baron, and it’s no
wonder her eyes feel like sandpaper; she’s been sifting through that college
professor’s files for nine straight hours.

Not that she found the
reading itself all that enthralling, but there was a lot to read: forty files,
one for each product of something called Project Moreau, including the file
labeled MORANA JOYCE NMN (
NMN? What the hell is that?
she wondered.
I
don’t have a middle name
). She started with her own file. The section
detailing how her DNA was specifically manipulated, that went way over her head
and she gave up after three pages, but the section dedicated to her developing
abilities were engrossing. Even the lengthy psychological profile, which
tracked her increasingly erratic behavior starting at the tender age of six,
was perversely fascinating.

More importantly, that
section gave her an idea of what to look for as she read through the other
profiles, along the way jotting down notes on motel stationery in the crude,
blocky print of a girl half her age.

One page, entitled DEAD,
holds three names. A second, marked with the header TOO FAR, lists fifteen
subjects who had at some point moved out of state. Another twelve names fill a
page entitled NO GOOD.

That leaves an even ten
names on the final list, which has no title.

Joy crosses her own name out
and works her way down the rest of the list, re-reading the subjects’ reports,
looking for information on their current whereabouts. She crosses off a name
after learning the boy in question is sitting in a state hospital for the
mentally ill. She strikes a second name after reading that the girl is a
runaway, missing for five months, current whereabouts unknown. That culls the
list of prospects down to seven.

The name directly under her
own, MARTENS KURT EVAN, is at present a resident of a halfway house for
psychologically disturbed youth — a halfway house that is, conveniently, two
towns over. According to his file, Kurt suffers from severe anti-social
tendencies, resists all efforts to impose structure or instill discipline, and
displays extreme contempt for authority figures.

“Hello, new friend,” Joy
says.

TWENTY-ONE

Friday begins on an
appropriate note, meteorologically speaking; we arrive under a sky packed with
dark gray clouds that threaten rain or a late winter snowstorm.

As a group we meet at
Missy’s house, and as a group we walk to school. Matt and Sara and I may be
dealing with crap of our own, but we agree that our problems are, individually
and collectively, secondary to Missy’s. For the foreseeable future, it’s all
about her needs. I tell Missy I’ve canceled my date with Malcolm to be with her
tonight, but she won’t have it.

“I don’t want you to cancel
birthday plans for me,” Missy says. “Besides, Mom’s dragging me to the hospital
to visit Daddy after she gets home from work.”

“You don’t sound thrilled
about it,” I say. “Don’t you want to see him?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.
What am I going to say to him?”

“Fair point, but you two
need to clear the air eventually. He’s your father, and he does love you.”

Missy shrugs. “I don’t know
if I love him anymore.”

The rest of the walk passes
in silence.

We arrive at school well
ahead of the first warning bell. Mr. Dent stands at the main entrance, greeting
students as they enter. He wishes us good morning and, as a unit, we grunt
back.

“Kids, is something wrong?”
he says.

“What isn’t wrong?” Matt
says.

Given a line like that, most
adults would offer us a patronizing smile and chuckle and dismiss Matt’s
comment with a blithe
Oh, things can’t be all
that
bad
, because
teenagers never have real problems, do we? Not compared to adult problems. We
blow everything out of proportion and don’t know what
real
problems are.

Mr. Dent, however, is not
like most adults. He nods sympathetically and says, “You guys are going through
a lot, huh?”

“To put it mildly,” I say.
“We’re feeling a little overwhelmed —”

“A
lot
overwhelmed,”
Sara says.

“— and nothing we do seems
to do any good. It’s frustrating, you know?”

Mr. Dent nods again. “May I
offer some advice?”

“Sure,” I say. Doubt
anything he says will help, but he sure can’t make things worse.

“Take a big step back,” Mr.
Dent says. “You can only push for solutions for so long before it becomes
counterproductive. You lose sight of what the problem really is, you get
frustrated, and pretty soon you’re making everything worse without meaning to.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is let yourself cool down a little so you
can approach things with a clearer head.”

I stand corrected; that’s
actually good advice.

“I think Mr. Dent’s right,”
I tell the others. “Between Concorde blacklisting us, the Buzzkill Joy mess,
all the garbage going on with our families — we’re getting smothered under the
weight of it all. None of us can think straight anymore.”

“Don’t see how we fix
anything by doing nothing,” Stuart says. “Feels like we’re giving up.”

“Stuart, I promise we’re not
giving up, but we need to try to relax a little. We’re reaching a breaking
point. If we totally lose it, we’re no good to ourselves or anyone else,” I
say. “Two days. We put everything on hold until Sunday, take some time to
reboot our brains, and start fresh. What do you say?”

It’s a nice little speech,
and they buy it.

I wish I could.

     “Kurt,” Mr. Dalloway says, “once you’ve finished
loading the dishwasher, please go up to your room and make your bed.”

“Uh-huh,” Kurt says.

“After that, we’re meeting
downstairs for the morning group session, so don’t be late. Nine sharp.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good man.”

“Uh-huh.”

As household chores go,
cleaning up the breakfast dishes is among the more tolerable: Collect
everyone’s dishes off the breakfast table, take them to the kitchen, dump them
in the dishwasher, fill the detergent reservoir, press a button, done and done,
onto the next bit of assigned and scheduled slave labor.

Any chore is preferable to
the torture that is group therapy, the twice-daily confession ritual designed
to force Kurt and his housemates to confront their flaws and weaknesses, the
various sources of their anger and sorrow. The worst is when someone has what
Mr. Dalloway, the live-in house monitor-slash-therapist, calls a
“breakthrough,” because that always involves one of the boys crying like a
little bitch.

Kurt hasn’t come anywhere
close to having a breakthrough.

The other boys look up to
him, after a fashion; it’s less respect and more a healthy fear. Sometimes the
new arrivals get smart right away; they sense Kurt’s power, his quiet resolve,
and they don’t challenge him. Just as often, a new boy will try to assert
himself and throw down a challenge. He’ll get in Kurt’s face, puff out his
chest, set his jaw, tell Kurt he’s not so scary. He’s not so tough. He’ll dare
Kurt to push back, to take a swing, but Kurt will take the display in stride
and, when Mr. Dalloway isn’t within earshot, tell the boy to meet him in the
woods behind the house at midnight.

There, in a small clearing,
Kurt teaches the new boy his first lesson as a resident of Sutherland House: Do
not screw with Kurt Martens.

There have been occasions
when Kurt wanted to take Mr. Dalloway to the clearing — many, many occasions,
but what would that accomplish? That’s nothing but a one-way ticket to another
halfway house, maybe someplace worse than Sutherland.

Maybe back home.

Kurt trudges upstairs to his
room, passing in the stairway a boy named Donald — or Ronald, something like
that — the last new arrival to challenge Kurt’s dominance. Donald (or Ronald) pushes
against the wall, granting Kurt the right of way. The boy bows his head
submissively, not daring to make eye contact.

Kurt’s hand pauses over his
doorknob. There’s a strange odor in the air, a combination of leather and a
soap that is definitely not the disgusting Irish Spring Mr. Dalloway insists on
buying. There’s something else there, something Kurt has not smelled in a long,
long time, a faint aroma that sends a charge of primal excitement down his
spine.

He opens the door. Buzzkill
Joy smiles at him from his bed.

“Shhh,” she hisses, holding
a finger up to her lips. She beckons Kurt inside with the same finger. He
closes the door and leans on it — the best he can do for security, since none
of the bedroom doors have locks.

“Who the hell are you?” Kurt
says.

“I’m your new best friend.
My name’s Joy. And your name’s Kurt.”

Kurt snorts. “That supposed
to impress me? My name’s on a half a dozen whiteboards around here.”

“Oh, you want me to impress
you? Okay, Kurt Martens of Bridgewater, do you want me to tell you how you
wound up here? How you nearly crippled your stepfather after he — nah,” Joy
says, bouncing onto her feet, “let me tell you about the cool stuff you can do.
I know you’re, like, freaky strong for a kid. I know you could probably hear me
breathing from the other side of the door, maybe smell me because of
your...what did the report call it? Enhanced old factory senses? What do you
say? Am I impressing you yet?”

Kurt grabs for the collar of
Joy’s leather jacket, intending to scare her — beat her, if necessary — into
telling him how she could possibly know all that. Joy intercepts the clutching
hand, stopping it cold, and coaxes from Kurt a hiss of pain as she sinks her
claws into the soft flesh of his wrist.

“Be cool, Kurt. I told you:
I’m a friend. If I wanted to do you wrong?” Joy says, applying pressure. “You’d
be bleeding to death.”

Joy feels the tension drain
out of Kurt’s arm. She releases him.

“Good boy. Now, how about we
talk like a couple of civilized people?” Joy says, drawing from Kurt a derisive
chuckle. “You got questions, don’t you?”

“Only a couple hundred.”

“Pick a favorite.”

“What do you want?”

“Hmm. You picked a tough
one, Kurtsy. I want a lot of things.”

“Pick a favorite.”

Joy, grinning, resumes her seat
on the edge of the bed. “I want a shower that actually has hot water. I want to
go to sleep in bed that doesn’t smell like Lysol. I want to eat something other
than Dunkin’ Donuts and takeout Chinese and pizza. You know: reasonable stuff.”

“Yeah, no, can’t help you
with any of that.”

“You know what I want the
most, though? I want to burn the whole damn world to the ground,” Joy says,
“and that, Kurtsy, I think you
can
help me with.”

Kurt smirks. “All right,” he
says. “Now you got my attention.”

TWENTY-TWO

I inspect myself in the
full-length mirror hanging on the back of my mother’s bedroom door. Something’s
wrong. Something’s missing.

Malcolm suggested dressy-casual
attire so I went with form-fitting black jeans, ankle boots, a powder-blue
blouse, and a gauzy scarf with artfully tattered ends (I think it’s technically
taupe, but a lot of neutral colors look the same to me). I didn’t go crazy on
the hair and make-up, but the total package that is me is fit for a night out
with her handsome young suitor.

So why do I look so drab?

Because I’m not smiling is
why. From the neck down I’m hot stuff, but if you were to judge me solely by my
expression, I’m heading out to a wake. I can’t muster anything but the fakiest
of fakey smiles. The past several days are like a physical weight on my chest,
crushing me by inches.

Oh, I am going to be a pure
frickin’ delight tonight.

Malcolm’s arrival brings
with it an incremental rise in spirits. He offers his arm, all gentleman-like,
escorts me to his car, and asks me where I’d like to go for face-stuffing
purposes.

“Surprise me,” I say, which
is a euphemism for
I have absolutely no appetite whatsoever, so don’t ask me
.

Luckily my tastes are fairly
broad, so I’m totally cool with the Tex-Mex place Malcolm takes me to. It has a
rambling floor plan with lots of little nooks and hidden alcoves, and we wind
up in a dim, cozy corner well out of view of the other diners — perfect for my
decidedly anti-social mood.

With effort, I keep up my
end of the conversation, which circles around with no real point. Malcolm and I
chat about school, he tells me more about his family vacation, mentions some
project he’s working on for the pastor at his church, and I nod and offer
polite responses all the while, trusting it hides my indifference effectively.

Nope.

“You’re a little distracted
tonight,” Malcolm observes.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, I get it, you’ve got a
lot on your mind.”

“Too much. It feels like...”

“Your life is falling apart
around you?”

I wince. “Little
melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“But accurate?”

“...Yeah. Between my mom and
her boyfriend behaving like horny teenagers, Matt’s parents heading for
divorce, Missy’s dad in the hospital, Sara’s dad’s weird freak-outs — and we’re
all stuck in the middle of this crazystorm with no way out.” I let out an
exhausted sigh. “I don’t know what to do, Malcolm. I feel totally helpless. I
hate feeling helpless.”

Malcolm nods. “I felt that
way when my mom got diagnosed with cancer,” he says. “I didn’t fully understand
everything going on at the time, but I remember Dad losing his job right after
Mom went into the hospital, which meant we lost his health coverage, so he had
to dip into savings, so he was always in a foul mood, and my aunt — Mom’s
sister — she was going through a divorce at the time, and she was taking all
her frustration out on everyone around her, including Dad and me...it was a
heck of a soap opera.”

“What did you do?”

He spreads his hands.
“Nothing. What could I do? I was six. All I could do was endure.” He smiles.
“You know what helped?”

“What?”

“Well, I guess there are a
few versions of the story, but my pastor told me about a great sultan who
summoned King Solomon, the wisest man of the time, to ask him the secret of
finding peace during troubled times,” Malcolm says, “so Solomon presented him
with a ring inscribed with the phrase, ‘This too shall pass.’ The point is:
Everything in life is temporary, including suffering. You just need to be
strong enough to weather the storm — or crazystorm, as the case may be.”