No way was Ernesto holding up that mass of flesh. The overloaded wheelbarrow tilted forward. Ernesto struggled to keep it upright, but he couldn’t balance the weight of two men. With a clunk as the metal hit blacktop, Leibowitz was unceremoniously dumped back to the street. Without the cop’s deadweight on top of him, Ernesto’s hazmat victim scrambled out of his ignominious position.
Both body snatchers started swinging fists.
I didn’t like Chesty’s sleazeball manager any more than I liked Leibowitz, but the unfairness of two young, strong men beating up on one little old guy hit me squarely in the justice button.
It would be wiser for all if I could learn to think these things through in quiet contemplation, but that’s not really possible when fists are involved.
Without much practice at my new talent, I was flying without radar. The image of body snatchers cracking knuckles against solid ice appeared in my head, and, hidden in the alley, I went with it. No idea where that visual came from. I just got mad, visualized, and boom! It happened.
Unfortunately, the enactment of a visualization was not always literal, but this time I came close. The whack of knuckles hitting a hard surface and the howls of shock that followed said I’d done something.
With my back to a brick wall, I peered around the corner again. The body snatchers nursed cracked bones—or smashed hazmat gloves—cursed, and glared in disbelief at the iceberg between them and Ernesto. The pink ice was already melting into Edgewater’s chemically enhanced blacktop. So maybe I’d frozen gas.
Ernesto tugged at Leibowitz’s nearly three hundred pounds, attempting to load him into his rusted wheelbarrow. Disguised in my suit, I considered it safe enough to saunter out to help him.
The diminutive manager sent me a suspicious glare but refrained from questioning pink rock candy mountains as long as I was helping him load the cop. Weirdnesses happened in the Zone. We left the attendants bandaging busted knuckles and shoved our unorthodox gurney toward Chesty’s.
Before I entered the bar, I stared down the oddly empty street. It felt like a science-fiction film: earth after a nuclear war had wiped out all life forms. Or maybe that was just the effect of the moonwalking suit I was wearing.
Beneath the wispy weird cloud, I could see that the police had barricaded off the end of Edgewater that led up to Acme Chemical. Were they keeping Acme in or us out?
Since there were a dozen official vehicles at the plant and zero on our side, my bet was that they had sealed off Acme in the foolish belief that the cloud wasn’t hurting anyone down here. If a tank had blown, they probably had multiple injuries inside the facility. Out here, we were invisible. Or unimportant guinea pigs.
I followed Ernesto into Chesty’s . . . and walked in on an impromptu town hall meeting.
Or maybe it was a triage camp. Ernesto trundled his burden to a pallet on the floor and unceremoniously dumped him out. Comatose old people sprawled on blankets littered the floor between tables. And men in hazmat congregated around the bar, arguing, giving the place the appearance of a tavern on the moon.
Oddly, there were several people in hospital scrubs circulating from pallet to pallet, testing pulses and bandaging injuries. They didn’t seem any older than me. Medical students? The cheap housing in the industrial district attracted penniless students from the various universities and even Johns Hopkins, but the Zone seemed an unlikely hangout. Why weren’t they wearing hazmat suits?
I saw no sign of Paddy, but Ernesto had returned to the bar, where he was passing out drinks. Hazmat helmets were off or open. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that none of us had eaten this morning. Alcohol on donuts and empty stomachs was unappealing and not a particularly smart idea.
Accepting that Ernesto had been helping and not harming for a change, I tramped through the kitchen as if I owned it. I’d worked at Chesty’s as both flunky and waitress, had friends back here who fed me for free, so I knew my way around.
Pulling off my gloves, I set the coffee machines running, gathered every edible in sight, and, wondering if gas had contaminated the food, carried it to the bar.
“If you’re not worried about the air in here, then I’m assuming the food is safe,” I announced mechanically, still stupidly wearing my hood in hopes of reducing the gas effect. “Coffee will be ready in a minute.”
“Thanks, Tina.” The tallest suit pulled off a glove and swiped a whole mini-loaf of bread from the tray. Polite, with big hands—that would be Schwartz.
Andre was leaning with his back against the bar, watching the students and their patients, only half-listening to the hubbub around him. He’d removed his hood and gloves, so he could only narrow his eyes at my arrival and not complain too loudly about lawyers being a waste of suit.
“Are they dead?” I asked as Andre swiped a handful of brownies.
“Comatose.” Frank pulled off his hood gear and took one of the mini-loaves and a bucket of butter.
“Why aren’t you taking them up to the house then? Isn’t it dangerous down here?”
“Hard to say,” Andre growled. “Paddy was out there earlier. He says the gas is only affecting those who are already sick. But it knocked out Sarah, so keep your suit on.”
Andre didn’t fully grasp what Sarah and I were. Neither did we, actually. But he’d seen the identical tattoos of justice scales on our backs, and he wasn’t stupid. In fact, sometimes, he was freakily prescient.
“Unless you have him, I think Acme got Bill, too,” I warned.
There was true remorse under Andre’s curses this time. If Paddy was right, did that mean Bill had been sick already? He’d seemed plenty healthy, although he’d once been a heavy smoker. Like most men, Bill probably thought himself invincible and had never bothered with doctors.
So I kept my suit on, even though I was starving. But I snatched the last brownie and crammed it under the hood to munch, and fed a sardine to Milo in my pocket.
“Where’s Paddy now?” I asked, intent on my goal of rescuing Sarah.
Ernesto produced a tray of coffee. The aroma was heavenly, but I couldn’t figure out how to drink coffee and keep my hood on. Frustrated, I took it off despite the warning. I could die of starvation or get some caffeine and go berserk with gas. I chose the latter as more interesting.
At my defiant action, Andre asked, “If I was mayor and passed a law forbidding you to go outside without a suit, would you obey it?”
“What do you think?” I greedily sucked down coffee.
“I think lawyers ought to obey the law,” Andre replied grumpily.
“And mayors only make laws the voters want, so you don’t get to be dictator. This voter wants coffee. Now, again, where’s Paddy?” Andre’s charm didn’t work so well on me, and he knew it. Neither did his attempts to distract, although the kiss still burning my cheek had potential.
“Paddy’s probably locked up with Sarah and Bill in the decontamination chamber,” Schwartz answered, averting further squabbling. Leo didn’t talk much, but when he did, it was effective.
“Decontamination chamber?” I’m quick. I got it. I just wanted it spelled out clearly before I flew into a vengeful fury. I was starting to recognize the signs of mindless red rage that meant I was headed for full-out ballistic. Now I had to figure out how to control it.
Hearing the anger in my voice, Andre broke a bread loaf and stuffed a piece in my mouth. “Don’t go berserk on an empty stomach.”
Even a day old, the bread was good. Rosemary with a hint of garlic. I couldn’t yell with my mouth full, but I could glare daggers at the back of Andre’s thick head.