Orphan of Mythcorp Read online

  Orphan of Mythcorp

  A Mythcorp Novel, Book 4

  Smashwords Edition, 2015

  Story by R.S. Darling

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  Chapter 1

  When Mythcorp Tower rose into view, I didn’t tell anyone. I’m no fool.

  “Is that it?” Galahad asked on spotting the notorious building. Even worse, he shot out of his seat and pressed his face to the filmy window. “Is that Mythcorp?”

  I yanked him back down. “Shh! You want to get us sent back to the Home?”

  He mumbled a response, but this and the mindless chatter of Morai all around me on the bus dulled to white noise as I gaped up at Mythcorp. Somewhere in that fifteen story tomb were the answers I’d been asking since I could . . . ask. What happened to the original Morai? Why had we spent all our lives in a government funded, bars-on-the-windows day-care prison? Why were we only just now being released? And of course, the King Kong of queries: who were my parents?

  Attention wavered as Galahad shifted beside me on the ripped leather bench. Voices returned in a slam-bang rush. Someone was yelling.

  Our faces mashed into the seatbacks ahead of us as the bus lurched to a screeching halt.

  “Check out that kook,” Galahad said, recovering quickly.

  Following his gaze, I saw the kook; some strangely duded up man was approaching our bus with the swagger of a doojee-fiend at the end of his binge. With his scarred mug and huge raggedy fur coat he looked like a bear that’d scarcely survived a fight with a pride of lions.

  “What’s he doing?” Galahad asked. “He’s going to get run over, walking in the street like a dum-dum.”

  He had a good point. A smidge part of me, the devil-on-my-shoulder part, hoped the kook would get pancaked. It’d serve him right for interrupting our first sighting of Mythcorp Tower.

  As the man lurched towards us through the red light, twelve sets of white peepers and my own pair of hazels bore down on him. He paused about ten feet in front of our bus to press something in his hand; the traffic lights began to blink rapidly, red-orange-green, as though stupefied by the sight. Virgil’s Nave—six sky-ticklers ranged like sentries around the derelict Tower—shimmered in morning sun behind the kook.

  Our bus caught the jive from the lights and barfed up a few sparks. Something rattled up front. The stink of melting plastic filled the bus as the engine sputtered. Death moans of a Hybrid Cummins.

  Perhaps we should’ve run at this point. Woulda-shoulda-coulda.

  A girly cry escaped from Mr. Malory, our bus driver; I’d never be able to think of him as a real man again. Even so, I followed his peepers to the folding door where the heavy-duty Davy Crockett wannabe was standing outside peeping in. He shoved his hand (an appendage comprised of blue-black metal) between the door and the frame and pried it open. Mr. Malory yelled, “What do you want?”

  When the cats in DC had announced they were transferring us from Ava’s Home for Lost Children to Philicity High, the Myth Free Zoners—an anti-Mythcorp group—had conditionally promised not to intervene, and so we were being carted off without the strength of an armed guard. All we had in the way of protection was Mr. Malory the screeching zipperdick.

  Thanks Uncle Sam. Just keep pinching those pennies.

  The bearskin-cloaked kook scanned the bus. I was sitting four rows back, not far enough to be spared the sight of his glowing right peeper, one of those crude augmetics from the early years of this century. It paused on me. Was that a look of recognition? His gaze continued on to Ash (the littlest Morai) and you could almost hear the crimson pupil dilating. The way he goggled Ash made me wonder if he was a puff as well as a kook.

  Before anyone could react, the man leapt forward, grabbed Ash by the collar and dragged him off the bus. This was no holy-moly feat, since Ash stands only five feet and some chump change, and as a Morai he’s about as heavy as a bag of hair. Still, it was totally not cool.

  The guys on my side gawked through filmy windows at Davy Crocket as he dragged Ash through the wrought iron entrance into Lincoln Park, oblivious to the honking horns. The guys from the other side jumped up and shoved their way through us gawkers to steal a peep at the unfolding scene, a full blown obamafest.

  Mr. Malory scrambled to hit the EMS screen. When that didn’t even offer a squelch, he picked up his FAD. After tapping a few buttons he threw the phone onto the dash and cursed. “Dummit all!”

  “Call the police,” several Morai ordered, while Galahad cried, “Oh man oh man. What a pisser.”

  Like any fifteen-year old guy, I’d fantasized about being the super hero, but so far I was coming up pretty limp. My pumper was gushing blood with whiz-bang gusto, trying to convince me it would explode if I didn’t grow a pair soon, when the kook halted about twenty feet away. He glanced back at us, and then whipped Ash around so we couldn’t see him.

  Under nickel-colored clouds, Davy Crockett stood looming over Ash, possibly whispering. Several ticks later he stood up straight and started limping back towards the bus. His right knee seemed to bulge unnaturally. Either it was wrapped in a dressing or there was another augmetic implant living in monkhood underneath his khakis. He loomed closer, larger and more hideous with every step. He might have just come in off some ancient battlefield.

  Someone unleashed a cute little yelp.

  Mr. Malory struggled with the lever to shut the door, but the kook caught it with his metallic hand and held it open with seeming ease. A worn black combat boot rose to the first step; a matching boot followed, also rough and torn and painted in shades of grime.

  “What?” Mr. Malory demanded. “What do you want? I’ve called the police.”

  “No, you haven’t.” His voice was flavored by the raspy sound of a rebreather. I’d heard a rumor of a surfer having paid to have a pair surgically implanted in his lungs, so he could breathe underwater. Is that what this kook had? What in blazes happened to him?

  Ava scampered to the back of the bus, leaving a faint perfume trail in her wake. Hoo-boy. That fruity scent gets me every time. If I wasn’t careful, this obamafest would rev me up. The noggin-docs at the Home would have a field day with me. I remained seated where I was as the back end of the bus grew congested with Morai. I considered joining them—just to comfort them, of course, not because I was scared or anything.

  With the whine of a servomotor, Davy Crockett took the last step up into the bus. He faced Mr. Malory, who sat trying to control his wheezes.

  I was totally about to stand and command the kook to leave, use a Mesmer on him maybe, and look like a total hero, but just then he whisked something out from a pocket inside the fur-coat. The slam-bang move incited a collective gasp. But this shocker was nothing compared with what followed.

  The man shot Mr. Malory.

  It wasn’t a real gun. I didn’t think it was, anyway; I’d never heard a real one discharge. It was quieter than what I thought a proper gunshot should sound like. Mr. Malory jerked in his seat, brought his hand up to his neck, and removed a silvery dart.

  And then the only adult chaperon we of Home had been given, slumped. I hoped he was only conked out and not eternally buggered. Was this what the outside world was like? Maybe those bigoted Zoners were right in lobbying to keep us locked up in the Home all these years. For some reason my hand was ov
er my mouth. I dropped it before anyone could catch me performing such a girlie gesture.

  Sir Kooky Cloak turned to face us. Well, to face me, I was closest to him. Everyone else had fled to the rear, which gave me the dubious credit of being the bold one. Dynamite. I hadn’t even had to do anything but sit on my bum and not act on the urge to vamoose.

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ Marie inhaled. She’s one of the spooks who’ve been haunting me since birth. I hate it when she just appears beside me all BOOGITTY-BOO like. I hoped to someday find a way to wrap a bell around her intangible neck, give me some warning. ‘It’s him.’

  “Who?” I whispered.

  ‘The Hunter,’ Marie said in a like-duh manner. ‘I can’t believe he’s still alive. Ooh look at that squirrel. So cute.’ And with a flicker of her essence and a quiet bamf, she vanished. Her kind could be useful, but with their own spectral version of ADD, they’re mostly just annoying.

  The man scowled at me like I’d crapped on his lawn in a previous life. His hand twitched and there was a distinct click-clack from the dart-gun-thing.

  “Okay, we get it,” a soft, intelligent voice said from behind me. “You’re tougher than a bunch of students. Congratulations, you get the Ass-hole of the Year Award.” Ava had been born without a filter on her shapely red lips. I knew their shape by heart. Hopefully someday by taste.

  Without even blinking, the man readjusted his aim from my face to Ava’s chest.

  “No!” I surprised myself with this whiplash tone. “You don’t care about her. You came for me, didn’t you?” Hadn’t planned on saying that. Weird.

  “Do you know who you are?” in that raspy-mechanical voice. Shivers up my spine.

  I leaned forward and stood on mysteriously wobbly legs. “No. Do you?” On the outskirts of my attention, drivers around the bus were checking under their hoods, flailing their arms like dum-dums. Why were they not helping us? Couldn’t they see what was going on here?

  “You’re a bastard and a sonofabitch,” the Hunter snarled, retraining his gun on me.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Ash said, appearing at the door behind the man. The man hesitated as a look of megabomb frustration crinkled his face. He turned and peered down at Ash as the Morai said: “You are leaving.”

  I’d heard this calm tone from him before, when he had tried out his ability on Mr. Bors, caretaker of the Home. The bus was silent as the Hunter fought Ash’s Mesmer.

  Their peepers were connected now. The man never had a chance. You don’t lock peepers with a Morai. He holstered his gun and stepped off the bus without another word. Ten ticks later the tail of his bearskin coat vanished, embraced by the shadows of Lincoln Park.

  Cheers from the back of the bus. Ash walked up to me in his usual gait, hands folded in front. Such a zipperdick. He had to crane his neck to look up at my face, as I stand nearly six feet tall. “You all right?” he asked. I nodded and that was that. Among us orphans much is said without words. He’d just broken the law by using an extra-human ability and no one here was going to turn him in.

  While half the bus gathered around the little scene-stealer to shake hands and to praise him, Ava came up to me. “You know,” I said, “that was remarkably stupid of you.”

  “I was just distracting him to give Ash time to come up and do his thing.” She smirked.

  “Yes,” I sighed, “thank the stars Ash came along when he did.” The crowd around Ash surged, forcing Ava forward, into my arms. God, she smelled good.

  “Thanks,” she bit her lip. Yup, she was definitely hot for me. After I’d released her from my admittedly unnecessarily-tight grasp, Ava said “So what was all that crap about ‘do you know who you are’ and ‘no, who am I’?”

  I hesitated. “Just trying to distract that kook long enough for the great Ash-man to show up.” Smooth, real smooth.

  “Right,” Ava smirked.

  The police arrived six minutes later. By then everyone had taken their seats, and Ash was wearing a smile that threatened to split his face in two. That would be a sight to see, sure as sure.

  Whatever the Hunter had used to bugger the power in the traffic lights, our bus, and in the nearby cars, it had done a permanent job. But the cop cars worked and joy of joys we were all herded into two Philicity Police prisoner-transport vans. So not only did we still have to go to a public school, but now we were going to be transported there in police vans, like a bunch of J-Dean delinquents.

  It seemed to me a rather ominous way to start our public lives. Check that. It plain sucked.

  To make my day suck a little less, I entertained the idea of ratting Ash out to the cops. I entertained the piss out of this idea. But ratting him out would probably end up with all of us being shuffled back to the Home—indefinitely—and that would suck even worse than starting out as outcasts in Philicity High. No, I would grin and bear whatever was coming.

  And besides, I could always snitch on Ash later. This gleaming thought would see me through.

  As we pulled away, I popped a B-drop (a butterscotch candy coated in caramelized doojee) and took one last glance at Lincoln Park. I did not see the Hunter, but, just for a tick, I could’ve sworn I saw something much larger lurking beneath the trees across from the wrought iron gate, watching us.

  Chapter 2

  As I enjoyed my B-drop, I wondered for the umpteenth time why the government had finally decided to release us. ‘What the heck has changed?’ we’d all asked after Mr. Monmouth, Director of the Home, had made the announcement of our relocation.

  Our Official-Super-Deluxe-Police escort pulled into the driveway in front of the school. While the van lurched and we all attempted to recover, I thought about the rumors Ash had wheedled out of Mr. Bors: The Mythcorp War ended fifteen years ago after some CLASSIFIED dude finally buggered the President of Mythcorp, who—Mr. Bors explained during the prolonged Mesmer—was being harassed by this CLASSIFIED dude. True or not, these rumors still failed to explain the ‘What’s changed?’ part. Why had it taken fifteen years for the government to decide the baddie and us second generation Mythcorp products were no longer a threat?

  “Do you think they’ll like us?” Galahad asked beside me on the transport, his legs jittering.

  “I’m sure they’ll like you, G,” elbowing him. “And if anyone gives you lip, just yank it down and stomp on it.” With that, we exited the police van.

  I called him G because pronouncing his funky name always seemed strange to me. Like the other Morai, Galahad had been christened by a quantum computer called Glaston. The noodle in a network of cams and mics in the Home (to keep us freaks under wraps), Glaston had a hard-on for the Arthurian legend, so the Morai were forced to endure funky monikers. My own wouldn’t really be considered funky—if I were a girl.

  The school rose before us, three stories of blue brick. Foot-wide brick columns lined the front. Set into the foundation blocks were filmed-over basement windows, giving the school a slightly sleepy vibe. Officers herded my fellow orphans towards the staircase that rose in the center like a warning: Don’t tread on me, I’ll chew you up and spit you out.

  Ash was in the front, practically guiding our gun-toting shepherds. Such a douche. While striding up the steps, backpack weighing me down, I heard Pellinore saying “You boys see that? In the window there,” pointing. Pellinore has the shiftiest peepers of the Morai, always darting around.

  “See what?” Galahad asked. His whites were busy scanning the basement windows.

  “A beastie,” Pellinore answered. “Right there, just watching us. You boys saw it, right? It was just staring, like it was hunting or something.” Pells always calls us ‘boys’, as if he’s a man. He hasn’t even hit his growth spurt.

  “Just ignore him,” I whispered to Galahad. A tall officer stepped through the doors, while two others held them open for us. They were careful not to touch us. They were anal not to look into our peepers. The officer up front procured his badge for the Iconocops guarding the metal detectors. Back at the Home the
y’d told us about these dudes. Supposedly offered huge salaries to come out of retirement to babysit us, three Iconocops had been stationed here in Philicity High. It was the one contingent of the Zoners not boycotting our release. And these Iconocops were not afraid to glare into our peepers. They wore specially designed colored lenses called chem-shades, and were trained long ago to handle our kind: Mythicons, Morai, Icons, each and every product Mythcorp had ever forged.

  But then, we were not Mythcorp products, not exactly. We were second generation.

  A little dickering, a few laughs and we were through. Thirteen orphans wading in an ocean of blue tiles, police escorts aft, guards astern. The youngest Iconocop, a man who couldn’t be a wrinkle under fifty-five, stepped before us. His faded, distinctive blue and yellow uniform, with its Kevlar-reinforced coverlets and the sick-stick strapped to his thigh, seemed a bit gauche, but who was I to say?

  “All right, boys,” he paused while focusing on Ava. No doubt he was trying to decipher her gender. It’s probably difficult for normal’s to tell the difference between male and female Morai. The androgynous bodies, long white locks worn by guys and girls, and the soft features make for negligible distinctions. “And girl,” he deduced. Perhaps it was Ava’s maturing chest that gave her away. I checked to decide for myself.

  Yup. Can anyone say blossoming?

  “My name is Wes. I’ll be keeping an eye on you during your stay here, however short that may be.” Wes checked his watch every few ticks while speaking. Was he nervous? I hoped not. Nervous, armed dudes were hazardous to our health.

  ‘Jeez Louise,’ Marie said. I barely flinched this time. Fifteen years of enduring her sudden appearances might finally be paying off. ‘Is that . . . yeah, I know that guy. But he’s so old.’

  “Really?” I asked before I could stop myself. Gareth and Galahad looked at me like I was mad. Only Ava was privy to the knowledge of my spook problem. I lowered my voice. “Later, Marie.”

  “Go to your classes,” Wes was saying, “do your homework—or rather, school work,” he checked his watch again. “Stay out of trouble and we’ll get along just fine. Curfew’s at three, every night. Now—” looking around as if expecting trouble “—where is he?”