Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect (8 page)

Oh, no kidding. “It’s all
right. No one got hurt, and that’s the important thing, right?”

He nods. Okay, Carrie, he’s
calming down. Seal the deal; get him out of the suit before —

A trio of police cruisers
screams into the parking lot. The cars skid to a halt, the drivers jump out.
Please,
please
do not pull your guns and scream at the guy.

“DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!”

Well, crap.

Whatever Zen we’d
established goes right out the window. Mech-man swings his suit around to
unload his shotguns on the cruisers. The cops dive for cover. Windshields
shatter. Tires blow out.

A headshot would take him
out fast, but that would require a degree of control over my powers I don’t have
yet; I’m more likely to blast his head clean off his neck, and one thing I am
not is a killer. I go for the legs instead, hoping to take out a knee joint.

Have I mentioned that my aim
is not spectacular?

My blast goes a little high,
connecting with the mech’s thigh. It reels from the impact. Some kind of
reddish fluid spurts from the limb but it doesn’t go down. Worse, it reminds
the pilot I’m still here; the mech pivots to face me again.

When I’m powered up, I
generate an aura that is solid enough protection against energy-based attacks,
but I have no clue whether it could stand up to buckshot. Rather than find out
the hard way, I zip around behind the mech, easily avoiding his shot. I blast
him in the back — nice, wide target that it is — and the mech stumbles,
throwing its hands out to catch itself. Some poor dope’s SUV cushions its fall.

Aesthetically the thing
looks like a lumbering hulk, clumsy and slow. In reality, it’s clumsy and fast;
the mech whips around, hurling the SUV at me. I fire instinctively, expecting
to deflect the makeshift missile.

Instead, I blow up the gas
tank.
D’oh
.

It’s not a big, flamey
Hollywood explosion. It’s more like a giant camera flash going off, bright and
quick, but the fact remains: A gas tank exploded in my face. The fireball
cascades over me harmlessly (thank you, glowy aura), but the noise and the
shockwave rattle my teeth. I spiral out of the air and land hard on the roof of
a minivan.

I roll onto my back to see a
blurry gray mass stomping my way. I’m too dizzy to properly take aim. My best
bet — my
only
bet is to fire wide and pray I nail him.

“HEY!”

Oh, God, no.

The mech stops, turns. My
visions clears enough to make out a small object standing at the far edge of
the parking lot, bundled up like Ralphie’s little brother in
A Christmas
Story
. I yell at Farley, tell him to run, to get away, but instead, he
charges the mech.

When I first met the Quantum
Quintet, Meg and Kilroy introduced Farley to me as Final Boss. I never got the
connection between adorable little Farley and the nickname, which refers to the
biggest, ugliest, nastiest monster at the end of a video game.

I get it now. Oh, boy, do I
get it.

With each step, Farley
doubles in size. He rips out of his clothing as his skin turns into scaly
armor, like a crocodile’s hide. Claws like butcher knives spring from his
fingers, and horns, curled like a ram’s, sprout from a head that no longer
bears any resemblance to anything human. He roars, revealing a mouthful of
jagged fangs, and I swear I can hear Mr. Mech losing control of his every
bodily function. I can’t blame him.

The transformation complete,
Final Boss plows into the mech with the force of an avalanche, lifting the
machine off its feet before body-slamming it into the asphalt, cratering the
thing. It’s not getting back up any time this decade.

I stand up on the minivan as
Final Boss faces me, his blood-red eyes level with mine. I now understand why
the Quentins have a panic room in their house. I wish I were there.

“Farley?” I squeak.

He — it —
he
glances back
at the mech, then flashes a monstrous grin.

“Smooshed him good,” Final
Boss says, his voice the deep rumble of an approaching thunderstorm.

“Yeah, buddy,” I say, “you
smooshed him real good.”

Real
good; it took paramedics,
armed with hydraulic cutters and the Jaws of Life, an hour and a half to
extricate the man from his suit. He was a mess, but he’ll live to see his
arraignment, as well as the countless civil lawsuits that will no doubt be
filed against him.

As it turns out, our
troublemaker is a local resident well-known to police — although it wouldn’t be
quite accurate to call him a criminal (well, until today). Marvin Belcher,
owner of Belcher’s Scrap Yard and Used Auto Parts, likes to spend his spare
time making experimental vehicles, everything from rocket-powered roller skates
to motorized barstools (I swear, I am not making that up) to personal
hovercrafts powered by lawnmower engines. Sturbridge police regularly catch him
testing his unlicensed creations on public roads, which typically result in the
confiscation of his latest toy and maybe a citation for some minor motor
vehicle violations.

He won’t get off that easy
this time around, and not just because of the rampant destruction of public
property; during the extraction, the first responders discovered the suit’s
power source: A pair of nuclear micro-cells. They’re strictly regulated by the
federal government (because, duh,
nuclear
), which means there is no way
an average guy like Marvin could get his hands on them legally. He’s in
neck-deep doo-doo, as is whoever was stupid enough to sell that kind of tech to
a civilian for use in his giant robo-suit.

That, however, is a mystery
for another time, and not my most immediate concern, because there’s a naked little
boy sitting in the back of a police cruiser I need to get home.

I don’t think the Quentins
are going to ask me to babysit again.

The Quentins return, as
promised, at eleven on the nose, and the first words out of Dr. Quentin’s mouth
are, “Carrie, do you know what happened at the ice cream shop?”

I slide out from underneath
Farley, who fell asleep in my lap as Bilbo and the dwarves arrived in Lake-town
in their barrels. There’s no sense in trying to cover it up, so I lay out the sequence
of events in detail, then brace for the fallout.

The conversation does not go
as I expected. “You mean Farley didn’t try to eat you?” Kilroy asks.

“Eat me?” I say.

“Kilroy. Farley has never
eaten anyone,” Dr. Quentin says. “My son is not a cannibal.”

“What about that one time he
—?” Kilroy begins.

“You know bloody well Farley
only bit him...and he spit him right back out.”

They’re messing with me.
They have to be.

“As long as both of you are
okay,” Joe says, moving past me to scoop Farley up in his hands. The boy never
stirs. “Why don’t you settle up with Carrie, hon, I’ll get Farley to bed.”

“I think bedtime is in order
all around,” Dr. Quentin says. Taking the hint, Kilroy and Meg wish me
goodnight and shuffle off to bed.

“G’night, Carrie,” Joe says
on his way out. “Thanks for everything.”

“Yes, thank you, Carrie, we
appreciate your time — as do the police, I’m sure,” Dr. Quentin says. “Would a
check be all right? Or do you use PayPal?”

“Uh, check’s fine,” I say.
Dr. Quentin fishes her checkbook out of her purse. I know I’m tempting fate by
asking, but, “You’re not upset about what happened tonight?”

“Why would I be upset? It
was hardly your fault some imbecile nearly destroyed the ice cream shop with
his experimental battlesuit,” she says with a complete lack of interest, as
though such things were normal, everyday occurrences...which, in our world, I
suppose it is. “If I’m to reprimand anyone, it will be Farley. You told him to
go home, he disobeyed you...”

“Don’t be too hard on him.
He did save my butt, after all.”

“Nevertheless, he will be
spoken to. Children need to know that rules cannot be broken without
consequences, regardless of whatever noble intentions drove their decision.”
She rips off a check and hands it to me. “Again, thank you for caring for
Farley this evening. I hope I can call on you again in the future.”

“Absolutely. Farley was a
total delight. Maybe next time we can get through the rest of
The Hobbit
.”

“Oh, he had you read
The
Hobbit
with him? He
does
like you,” Dr. Quentin says. “Normally he
makes his babysitters read
The Silmarillion
.”

She
has
to be messing
with me.

Dr. Quentin escorts me out
to the landing pad. I lift off, and for the return trip, I decide to break the
sound barrier a few times over in the name of getting home quickly. The
evening’s catching up to me and I want nothing more than to crawl into bed.

Mom is still up when I get
home, reading on the couch — no surprises there, but it takes a second for it
to hit me: She’s home, and alone. Hmm.

“Hi, honey, how did the
babysitting go?” she says.

“Fine. Nothing exciting to
report,” I say, the lie coming easily. You know what the funny part is? I
really have had worse babysitting jobs. “Didn’t expect to see you home
tonight.”

She rolls a shoulder, a lazy
shrug. “Dad was worried Ben and I have been moving too fast,” she says
casually. “He suggested we slow things down a little, so we’re taking a break
this weekend.”

I can’t stop the smirk from
spreading across my lips. “Are you saying Granddad grounded you?”

“He did not ground me,” Mom
says, looking up from her book. “I’m a grown woman. I do not get grounded.”

Uh-huh. Sure you don’t. Why
would you get grounded? After all, all you did was sneak a boy into the house
late at night for —

Okay, stopping there.

I linger a moment, half-expecting
Mom to say something about the other night, perhaps offer an awkward apology,
but no, it looks like we’re going to let that particular issue go without
further comment. Just as well, I suppose. 

I trudge up to my room, the last
of my energy draining out of me, and I fish my check out of my pocket. Maybe
I’ll treat myself to something — you know, a just reward for surviving the
night. There’s that Bruce Springsteen import box set I’ve had my eye on for a
while...

I finally look at the check.
Holy crap.

Screw the box set. I’m
hiring Bruce to play at my birthday party.

EIGHT

Right, I have a birthday
coming up in two weeks, the big one-six — on the sixteenth, coincidentally, right
in-between the Ides of March and St. Patrick’s Day. Interpret that as you will.

I wake up wondering what I
might want to do for my big day. Sixteen is a landmark birthday for girls, or
so popular culture has led me to believe. According to MTV, my parents should
be doling out insane amounts of money for a party so obscenely indulgent, Jay
Gatsby would be like,
Whoa, kid, turn it down a notch
.

Passing through the living
room, I notice Mom’s photo album sitting on the coffee table. I make some
coffee, then sit down and thumb through it. The first page sucker-punches me:
it holds only one picture, an eight-by-ten of Mom and Dad holding a newborn
Caroline Dakota Hauser. I have a serious case of Bambi eyes going on, and a
huge, toothless smile fills my pudgy little face. I looked so happy. We all
did.

As I flip through the pages,
I realize the album is a record of my childhood: I’m in every picture. The
album hits all the expected milestones (birthdays, special family outings,
school events), but a lot of the photographs are candid shots of me engaged in
normal kid stuff: playing, coloring, getting ready for Halloween. Around age
eight, my tomboy side manifests, big-time. My hair goes into pigtails, my smile
takes on an impish edge, and I look mussed all the time. Three pages go by, and
not one picture has me in clean clothes.

I flip the page. It’s
another full-page picture, overflowing with memories I’d forgotten I had (if
that makes sense). Dad and I are at the Garden (or whatever they’re calling it
now) for a hockey game, right behind the Plexiglas surrounding the rink. We’re
wearing matching Boston Bruins jerseys, and Dad has one of those ridiculous
foam bear heads emblazoned with the Bruins logo (the team’s alternative to the
classic foam finger). Judging by our expressions, we were having an absolute
blast.

I know we were: that was our
first time going to a Bruins game for my birthday.

Dad watched hockey
religiously. When I was a little kid, I didn’t understand why he got so excited
over the games but I knew he loved them, so I wanted to love them too — which
was my habit back then: Dad liked something, therefore I had to like it too. My
love of Bruce Springsteen, James Bond movies, Sherlock Holmes,
The Hobbit
,
ice hockey — all his fault (which, for the record, is
not
a complaint).
When Dad offered to take me to a game, I of course jumped at the chance. Mom
went with us, but she wasn’t into it like we were, so it became a
father-daughter birthday tradition. We went every year.