Wonder City Stories

Last episode of 2015! Thank you for all your continued support, and the kind reviews I've been seeing around the web! I hope 2016 is kinder to you than 2015, whether you had a great 2015 or a terrible one (or an okay one, like I did).

Print and ebook versions of Wonder City Stories available! Find links to sites where you can buy them at judemclaughlin.com!



A Man Does What He Can; A Woman Does What a Man Cannot

"Guys," Nereid said into the general hubbub of the Young Cosmics meeting room. The loud conversations—particularly from Mercury holding court—continued unabated. "Guys?" she said again.

Sophie looked over at her and raised her eyebrows. Mercury was playing his boyfriends Gemini and Deflector off against each other in some sort of flex-off. Gemini had just done his power trick, making his two muscular brown arms into four, and Deflector was peeling his shirt off to reveal his pale but muscular chest. Vector was egging them on, to the annoyance of her girlfriend Meridian, who had not just turned away, but turned her entire wheelchair toward a conversation with Tin Lizzie, giving the gayboy display the cut direct. Wildstar, their featureless mask off for a change, revealing their androgynous tan face and short black hair, was chatting with Citizen Pain. Pay was giving Nereid side glances of attentiveness, but was also trying to be polite to Wildstar, their newest member. Wire was leaning back in her chair, arms crossed, one foot braced against the edge of the table, scowling at her boot, with her blue forelock drifting distractingly across her face.

Irritation bloomed and spread inside Nereid, making her feel like her skin was stretched taut with fury. Why did they elect me commander if they had no goddamn intention of paying attention to me? She fumed in silence for a few more moments, until Deflector was reaching for his belt, apparently to drop trou, and the anger exploded into her vision. She came to her feet, slammed both hands on the tabletop, and bellowed, "This meeting of the Young Cosmics will come to order."
( Read more... )

I know at least a couple of my readers have been wanting this episode for a while.


Even Though You Broke My Heart and Killed Me

Madeline's face: "I've got him."

Blink.

"Charge to 360 joules."

"Still in VTach, doctor."

"Blood pressure dropping."

"Crank it up. They said he was Class 5."

Blink.

"Get me a second stent."

"Deploying second stent."

Blink.

Madeline's eyes, drawn and tired above the surgical mask: "Damn you, Ira Feldstein, I'm not going to let you do this."

Blink.

It was a very long, very echo-ey, dimly-lit metallic hallway that curved gently to the right. He could hear his footsteps very clearly as he walked. Oh, you have to be kidding me, he thought. Really? Superheroes always see a damn satellite base when they die in the movies.

A tearing pressure in his chest lifted him out of the hallway. Madeline, gloved and gowned arms red nearly to the shoulder, was bending over him. He thought he could hear her singing softly as she rummaged in his chest, "... has only got one ball. Goering has two but very small…"

Ira wanted to protest that this song wasn't really appropriate for the time and place, but every time he tried to open his mouth, she tugged on something inside his chest that made everything snap shut. He felt a bit like the action figure of himself that came out in the 1970s, all held together with elastics.

Ira walked past a door. It slid soundlessly open, and he could hear many voices, and music, and the clink of glasses inside, though the light in there was too bright to see in. It sounded like one of the old Christmas parties! He could swear he heard Jane Liberty bellowing a carol with Bernie and June.

He was on his back again, staring up at a giant, blinding light. He felt something land on the sheet over his belly. He heard the voice of his old nemesis, Dr. Noontime, from one side of the gurney say, "Two kings."

"Oh, my dear sir," another man said, and Ira had to scrape around in his memory for the name—Professor Fortune! that murdering scumbag. "You can hardly hope to win his body with just two kings."

Body? Whose body? MY body? Ira thought and wished he could move. He felt an overwhelming urge to shout, "It's only a flesh wound!" Was that a quote from somewhere?

"Shut up and play, Fortune," Dr. Noontime growled.

A hand took Ira by the shoulder and squeezed gently as he peered in the door at the party. "No, Ira, not yet."

He spun around in time to see a familiar smile and brilliant blue eyes. "Lizzie?" he nearly shouted.

She winked, still young. Well, middle-aged. "You're still needed, you…"

Blink.

Andrea, leaning over him: "... stubborn old goat."

Blink.

Lizzie, at the side of the bed, looked up at him from a battered copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, and smiled.

Blink.

Suzanne, leaning on the edge of the bed, covering her face: "I'm so sorry, Ira. I'm so, so sorry."

Blink.

A nurse: "Just checking your drain, Ira."

Blink.

Andrea, again: "You're a silly old man and you need to wake up soon." She leaned back in her chair and stretched. "These hospital chairs will be the death of me."

Ira tried to say something but it came out a mumble because his mouth was so dry that things were sticking together in there.

She came to attention. "Ira? Suzanne, he's awake!" Andrea reached to the side and produced a familiar little sponge on a stick. "Can I wet your whistle, mister?"

Ira nodded feebly, and she gently (and expertly—he remembered that her husband David had spent a lot of time in hospitals) wetted his lips.

Suzanne appeared on the other side of the bed and squeezed his hand. "I'm so glad."

He realized he was in a hospital bed, cranked up till he was nearly sitting upright, and had tubes in his arm and other tubes running places he wasn't sure of. "What happened?" he croaked. His chest hurt like hell, and he didn't like breathing too deeply.

"You tried to keel over on us," Andrea said.

"You had another heart attack," Suzanne said. "Worse than that little one you had."

"They tried stenting you," Andrea added. "That kept you stable-ish until the riots settled down enough that we could transfer you to Wonder City General."

Riots? Ira wondered, but didn't ask. All things in good time. He looked around surreptitiously for a deck of cards.

"Well, that and Madeline practically growing you a new heart," Suzanne said.

"Anyway, you've had open-heart surgery," Andrea said. "Four bypasses."

"How did they get in?" Ira asked, guessing and dreading the answer.

Andrea shrugged. "I called Carolus, like we did for getting Josh's feeding tube in."

Ira could feel himself blanch. He was glad he hadn't woken up for that part. Carolus Lew, the Master of Wonderland, had access to the Vorpal Sword, which could pierce pretty much anything. If you knew him and were friendly with him, he could often be persuaded to use the Sword to help medical procedures on invulnerable paras. Word was that he actually had trained as a surgeon before he became the Master, though Ira really didn't know when that had been. Possibly before anesthetic became a thing.

Snicker-snack, indeed.

"You've been really slow to come out of anesthesia," Suzanne said.

"Probably because you're old as dirt," Andrea said.

"Anyway, we were getting worried," Suzanne said with a small roll of the eyes at Andrea.

Ira smiled. A wave of exhaustion washed over him just then. "I'm gonna sleep I think," he mumbled. And he let himself slip off to sleep, with his family holding his hands.

The Grave of Your Deserving

The Wonderful House boards were crazy with the news.

Somehow, it didn't surprise me, though. We'd never heard about Brandon's family on the show. They'd talked about Professor Canis, we had the memorable visit from Lizzie's father, Tom's aunt and uncle had come up from time to time, and Jeshri's family was always in her conversation. But not Brandon's. It seemed somehow fitting, karmically, that even his family abandoned him in the end.

Of course, it didn't seem fair that the people who had the most reason to dislike him were forced into the position of taking care of him. And of course they had to, especially after their closing video laying claim to him as "their jerk." They would have been ripped to shreds if it had come out that Brandon's body had been surrendered to the government for dissection.

I popped to a different screen and signed a half dozen petitions to do away with the Gold Stars research law. I knew that Ruth -- or someone -- would take care of me when I died, because god knows no one wants the government to dissect a Class 10 telepath. But didn't all the other paras, all the regular paras, all the homeless paras, anyone at all who wasn't quite the ideal human being, have a right to be buried with their secrets? Patriotic duty, my left asscheek.

It also didn't surprise me that the show's producers had abandoned any responsibility for Brandon along with their responsibility for payout or, you know, the safety of their "contestants". I did notice, however, that the producers tried to jump on the funeral bandwagon once it got rolling. In an interview with Simon:

WonderBlog: So will the funeral be televised?

Simon: We'll be livestreaming it for the fans.

WonderBlog: But no TV?

Simon: We couldn't reach an amicable compromise with the show's producers, who are in the best position to produce a televised version. They were interested in the funeral, but not interested in meeting any conditions, and we weren't interested in being screwed over again.

WonderBlog: Speaking of screwed over, who's paying for the funeral?

Simon: Fortunately, not us. There's a fund established by the Guardians and Gold Stars for the funerals of paras without families who die in a supervillain action.

Oh, good, I thought, at least the kids weren't going to have to cough up for the ridiculous costs of a funeral.

The livestreamed funeral was fascinating. I tuned in late (after taking practically every drug in my pharmacopeia that suppressed my powers without just knocking me out), just in time to see hundreds of fans packing into the largest room of the Weinstein Funeral Home. The camera view switched to Simon, in a tailored black suit, and Jeshri, in a somber brown skirt suit, walking out to meet Tom, who was pulling on a tweed sportcoat over a black polo shirt and khakis as he crossed the parking lot.

"You made it!" Simon said, shaking his hand.

"I couldn't let you guys face this without me," Tom said, next hugging Jeshri. "No luck with his dad though."

"What happened?" Jeshri said, and they all turned and started walking toward the funeral home.

"I stopped at the address you gave me, just outside Pittsburg," Tom said. "Parking the rig was a bitch and the neighbors all came out to stare. Upscale but older neighborhood, almost all white."

"Surprise," Simon muttered.

"Anyway," Tom said with a shrug, "I rang the doorbell. The lights were on and the TV was going, so I kept at it till he opened the door. And guys, the fumes just about knocked me the fuck over."

"Drunk?" Jeshri said.

"As a skunk," Tom said. "He was in his wifebeater and a pair of sweatpants and had about a week's worth of stubble. Looked just like Brandon would have after twenty years of partying and smoking."

"Yugh," Jeshri said.

"I'll spare you more gory details," Tom said as they neared the door. "Let's leave it at him telling me he wouldn't attend anything associated with his wife's filthy para crotch-dropping, in those words, even if it was the funeral for every backstabbing bastard para in the world at the same time. And then he mock-apologized that his wife was on the other side of the world, probably screwing someone who looked like me, when she could have been here, comforting me for the loss of my buddy, if only all paras weren't also great big homos."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Jeshri said, looking the part.

"Guess we know more about why Brandon was such a jackass now," Simon said.

"It's no excuse," Lizzie said, emerging from the doorway. "I mean, look at my dad."

"Must I?" Simon said.

"He's at least as big a jerk as Brandon's dad," Lizzie said, "and I, at least, try to be decent to other people." She was wearing a white blouse and pair of dark blue slacks.

Tom nodded. "You've got a point."

They hesitated outside the door, and then group-hugged.

"Time to butch up," Simon said, breathing deeply.

"Let's get this over with," Lizzie said, breaking away from the others and opening the door.

The camera switched back to the interior of the packed room. My computer system was blurring out faces except those I knew personally, so I noticed Ira and Suzanne Feldstein sitting in the front row, Ira in a crisp, bright Mister Metropolitan uniform and Suzanne in a dark burgundy suit. I saw Ruth, Olivia, and Larentia sitting together a couple of rows back, noticeably not in their more recognizable Ultimate, Fat Lady, and Professor Canis personas. The Steel Guardian was there with Sekhmet, representing for their particular teams. Brainchild, looking pale and wan, all nose and glasses, in a shirt, vest, and many-pocketed trousers, sat next to Wire, whose weirdly floaty blue forelock only briefly distracted me from the shining metal hand she flexed idly in her lap. And just as people were settling in and a man was stepping to the podium, the Equestrian and her horse (in his human form) strode up the aisle to sit with Ira and Suzanne.

The camera view then shifted to the plain black coffin with chrome trim and rails, against which leaned a small easel holding a photograph of a slightly younger, pleasantly-smiling Brandon -- probably a school photo of some sort. I could see any number of floral offerings around the coffin, including an ostentatious bunch of white lilies from the "It's a Wonderful House" producers.

The man at the podium was pastor of a local church who knew Tom (we were not vouchsafed an explanation for that). He was an uninspiring speaker -- I wished for the preacher from Mama's church, whose eloquence she always spoke of in glowing tones -- but white preachers have never particularly impressed me. I tuned out everything he said and concentrated on the images: the camera pans over the crowd (mostly young white people, I noticed), the expressions on the faces of the Wonderful House cast and crew (my system recognized Eartha the camerawoman in that group, and from her face I guessed she shared my assessment of the speaker), and the repeated switches back to the coffin.

He spoke for only about five minutes, which was a blessing, and no one else apparently cared to speak, so Olivia got up and sang "Ave Maria" in her most restrained voice, accompanied by a pianist I didn't know (and so couldn't see). When she was done, the pianist swung into something slow and somber, and Simon, Lizzie, Jeshri, Tom, Eartha, and another crew member I didn't know went forward, lifted the coffin, and carried it out on their shoulders. The crowd began to pour out the doors after them.

I walked away from the livestream while they drove to the cemetery. My computer system was excellent, but with the speed the cars were moving, it would inevitably miss blocking some people, and I just didn't need the headache. My family phone rang while I was pouring myself a glass of tea.

"Hey, Mama," I said.

"Are you watching the funeral?" she said.

"Of course," I said.

"You made yourself so sick over all that," she said, sucking her teeth in annoyance. "I can't imagine why you want to watch that horrible boy's funeral now."

"Because he's the end of the story," I said, adding three teaspoons of sugar to my iced tea. "It's about closure, Mama. He was that man's last victim."

"Well," she said, somewhat mollified. "When you put it that way. I suppose. Is that woman there?"

"Suzanne Feldstein? Yes, she was in the front row with her father-in-law," I said, sipping the tea and going through a door into one of my little parks, where I kept promising myself to start an aviary so I could have birdsong, another one of those things I miss.

"She wrote a very nice memorial to Yenaye and the other women, I thought," Mama said.

"Yes, I thought it was good too," I said, sitting on one of the wooden benches. The tone of her voice was detached, and I could tell there was a pressure of something she wanted to tell me. I waited.

"Rennie, I called you to tell you something," Mama said finally.

"What's up?" I said.

"Well, first thing, your cousin Benjamin asked me to ask you if you were serious about wanting a puppy, because he knows one that needs a home," she said. Mama doesn't like dogs, and that dislike dripped off her voice.

"Tell Ben that I absolutely want a new puppy, and he should send me photos," I said, feeling really excited for the first time in a while.

"You know him and his foolery with dogs," Mama said. "Of course he'd find you a dog. It'll have fleas, you know."

"There's medicine for that, Mama," I said, tamping down the excitement. "What else did you want to tell me?"

She fell silent. "I had one of my seeing dreams, Rennie," she said, her tone uncharacteristically hesitant.

"And?" I knew better than to say anything else at all, because she'd take it as disbelief and never tell me.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "I saw you alone with your dog. All alone, mind you, and not in your house." She always called the bunker my "house". I guess it made it sound less like I was locked away. "Looking out a great big window over the city." Throat-clearing again. "That's all. But I knew it was a seeing."

"Thank you, Mama," I said, feeling chilled. "I don't know what it means, but I'll remember it."

"You do that," she said, but I could tell she was gratified. I was the only one of her children who believed in her seeing dreams. I had reason to. "All right, I'd best be getting on. You take care now, Rennie."

"I will. You too, Mama," I said. "I love you."

"And I love you, girl," she said, and hung up.

When I got back to the screen with my half-glass of tea, they'd gotten to the cemetery and were lowering the coffin into the raw hole in the green earth. As I watched fans and acquaintances pass by the grave to throw flowers into it, I raised my glass. May it be sweeter for him next time around.

---

Note from the Author:

Renata's not the only one grateful for closure here!

Please remember to vote for WCS!

Full of Evil Clowns

I'd finally conquered my headache after drugging myself unconscious for about twenty hours, and I'd rescheduled all my clients for the next two weeks.  I felt better -- sore all around the edges, but better -- and I'd been swimming a lot.

Ruth called and I managed to keep the call short.  "Have you talked to Nereid and Wire?" I said after the initial greetings and stream of gratitude.

"Yes," Ruth said.  "Well, I've talked to Wire.  She said the whole thing was Nereid's idea, so I've been trying to get in touch with Pacifica.  She hasn't returned my calls yet."

"She's shy," I said, but I frowned and made a mental note to talk to the Equestrian.  "And probably exhausted."

"That's what Wire suggested," Ruth said.  "Anyway, thank you, Rennie, for everything.  I know what you did with those kids wasn't easy at all for you."

"They needed me," I said.  "And I wanted to be part of bringing that bastard down.  He killed a friend of my family."

"Damn, girl, you didn't tell me that," Ruth said.  

"Sorry," I said.  "I just... well, you were busy."

She sighed.  "All right.  Well, I'm glad you could be part of the resolution, at least."

"Me too," I said.  "Hey, Ruth, you know I love talking to you but..."

"You're still fried, I know.  Take care of yourself, boo," Ruth said.  "You're still coming to the party, right?"

Until that moment, I'd completely forgotten about Ruth's upcoming 50th birthday party.  "Oh, hell, yes," I said.  "I wouldn't miss it."

"I'll tell Sophie," she said.  "Love you."

"Love you too," I said, and we hung up.

I was grateful that I'd managed things so well, because I had a chance for a swim before the last episode of Wonderful House.

The speculation on what this final episode would be like had run wild on the Internet.  A memorial to Brandon?  The other housemates talking in detail about that night, since very little of the real story had come out?  Lizzie reconciling with her father?  (I vehemently hoped not.)  Simon and any of the other housemates confessing their undying love for each other?  (The biggest part of the fandom I frequented was pro-Simon/Lizzie, but a not-insubstantial proportion was pro-Simon/Jeshri.  There were lesser contingents for all the other combinations, including triads and even all four together, and even smaller groups that 'shipped non-Simon pairings.)  (I don't go to the parts of fandom that like Brandon.)

I think that no one, not even me, expected what we got: an hour of retrospective, talking heads analyzing the interactions and relationships, and a lot of voiceover on the scenes of the housemates packing their rooms.  Not a single line of current dialog from the housemates.  The only time any anger at all was allowed to show was when all of them were sitting in the producer's office, glowering at the PARABI executive who was, reportedly, letting them know that Brandon's death violated the agreement and there would be no payout.

I could almost hear the "OH HELL NO" in all their minds as I watched that scene, even though the voiceover was attempting to spin their glares as anger about Brandon.  I wondered what the fan response would be, so when the episode ended, off I went to the forums.

Many people were baffled.  "Wait, why isn't anyone being allowed to talk?"  More were angry: "The deal was no damage to the house! How does getting killed in a freak accident off the property count as violating the deal?"  Others were paranoid: "Brandon was killed by one of his housemates, probably Lizzie!  The lawyers have a gag order on everyone!"

The forums exploded for about half an hour, and then the link appeared.

A few of us were half-waiting for it, and pounced on it.

SuperTube's dynamic hit counter started running up while I was waiting for the video clip to load.  And then the video started to run.

The usual Wonderful House logo appeared, then "It's" was crossed out and replaced by "It Was Never", and the theme music slowed and morphed into something more sinister.

Simon was sitting in a leather chair by a roaring fireplace, dressed in an impeccably tailored black suit with a red silk pocket square and matching tie.  He looked squarely into the camera and said, in a voice more mellow and trained than he'd previously demonstrated (why, yes, he had attended acting classes in college after all, thanks, Parapedia), "After learning what the final episode of 'It's a Wonderful House' was to show, the cast and crew met in secret to discuss what to do.  All of us felt that the episode was a copout, cheating the fans who stuck with us all this time.  Today, we would like to present you, our fans, with our best gift, the only gift we can give you: the truth."

The usual opening, sans music, played, and Simon's voiceover said, "We thought we were participating in a perfectly normal, every day reality show.  What we didn't know was that the deck had been stacked -- both knowingly and unknowingly -- against us by the powers that be for the show."

"Knowingly," he went on, and the view zoomed in on one of the all-too-common images of Brandon, leerly vaguely and drunkenly at Lizzie and Jeshri in the living room, "because there is now documented evidence--" the view switched to a file folder in Brandon's disaster of a room, opened to a contract clearly branded with the IaWH logo "--that the producers paid Brandon a considerable sum to appear on the show to act as a prod to induce conflict."  The key clause of the contract was circled in red, and a clickable link to the document appeared.  I let the video continue to play.

We were then treated to a montage of images of Brandon getting shoved aside by one or another housemate, of Tom only just stopping himself from throwing a punch at Brandon's grinning face, of Jeshri electrocuting Brandon (leaving him rolling on the floor, his shorts showing a wet patch in front -- I note that this had never appeared on the show, of course), of Simon going semi-lupine in the face and snapping at Brandon with his flashing teeth, and finally of Lizzie throwing the boiling water on him, hitting him up the backside of the head with a sizzling frying pan, nailing him in the balls with his own baseball bat, and throwing the dishes at him so that he fell backwards down the stairs.

"Unknowingly," Simon said, "because they failed to carry out background checks on any of the crew, though they checked the cast out very thoroughly, even down to checking our credit ratings."

Watson appeared onscreen, with an identifying caption ("Watson Holmes, Consulting Detective").  She was dressed up only slightly, having added a tweed blazer to her usual buttondown shirt.  "It took me all of fifteen minutes to run superficial background checks on the entire camera, sound, and light crew, as it would for any professional.  I found that there is a member of the sound crew who likes to drive very fast, a member of the light crew who had recently divorced with allegations of abuse on both sides, a member of the production staff with a history of stalking, and a member of the camera crew with a history of domestic violence, sexual assault, and even a rape arrest that did not end in a conviction, due to technicalities rather than a failure to prove guilt."

"We got our first indication that something might be amiss," Simon said, returning to the screen, "when a member of the cast received a tip from a para fan that she had picked up a detail during a live broadcast that suggested we had a murderer in our midst.  That cast member shared this information with the rest of the cast, other than Brandon, because we had some indication that Brandon might be violent himself."

We then saw the clip of Brandon bragging about raping the drunk woman from the frat party, and the clip of Brandon talking to his cameraman about Simon and making vague threats. Then there was a scene in the dark of him coming in drunk late one night and wandering into random bedrooms until there was a wild scuffle that ended with Simon walking him up to the third floor, twisting Brandon's arm up behind his back and holding onto a handful of his hair.

"Then someone tried to blackmail Jeshri," Simon said, "by threatening to release personal photos of her to the Internet at large. The condition for not releasing them was meeting the blackmailer at a nearby park in Staybird in the middle of the night."

The camerawork was uninspired, but showed the housemates walking through the park. "Of course, we weren't about to let her go alone," he said in voiceover. They came around a curve and there was Brandon, clearly visible in the streetlight.

They played a bit of film that showed Brandon confessing to being involved in the blackmail, and then events dissolved into the chaos of the fight. The picture froze on Brandon's confused face. "Yes, Brandon was party to the blackmail, and was part of setting up the meeting, but we believe he didn't know about the murderous aspect of his partner in crime. Our best evidence is the casual manner in which the true criminal cast him aside." The video played forward, and even played through the killer hitting his scrambler device, so the bug cams were certainly hardened. We got a slo-mo image of the killer slamming Brandon in the chest, played from several angles.

"This blow, unbeknownst to us, ruptured Brandon's aorta," Simon said, and the picture returned to his cozy parlor. "Several of us went after the killer, while others called the ambulance. Tom rode to the hospital with Brandon, who was declared dead shortly after reaching the emergency room."

The view switched to Tom, who appeared to be sitting in a cafe. "He never woke up," Tom said in an uncharacteristically rough voice. "He said, 'I thought he was my bro,' and passed out and never fucking woke up again. I mean, what kind of fucking epitaph is that? He thought everyone was his bro, even people he insulted. He was like some kind of malevolent golden retriever. But goddammit, he might've gotten better some day."

Then Simon was sitting at that table, wearing casual clothing and looking angry. "I'm told I shouldn't feel bad about not staying to check on him," he said in a subdued voice. "I'm told he was a dead man, sitting there, and there was nothing I could have done. I'm told it was better that I went after the killer to try to keep him from hurting anyone else. But, you know, it's hard to believe that."

Jeshri was looking up at the ceiling and saying, "It pisses me off that every time I think about him, sitting there on the ground trying to breathe, I start tearing up. I don't want to cry for him. I thought he was an asshole and worse. But I can't get it out of my head: that look on his face when he couldn't understand why he couldn't stand up, why he couldn't breathe, why the one person who he thought was his friend had just hurt him so badly, and..." She wiped her face savagely with her sleeve. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Lizzie was sitting there now, being filmed from the same angle, and she was slowly tearing a cardboard cup sleeve into thin strips as she spoke. "When I started giving him mouth-to-mouth there in the park," she said, not looking at the camera, "all I could think was that when he woke up, he was never going to let me live that down. There would be all the stupid comments about missing out on kissing me and everything, and I would kick myself every time he said anything. I hated every second of taking that stupid moral high ground of trying to save his life. And then the shit died. And I felt so goddamn guilty about thinking bad stuff about him I could barely breathe. I still feel guilty. I feel guilty for being relieved that I never have to face him again." She crumpled the mass of cardboard in her hands and gritted her teeth, saying, "When someone you love dies, you cry and scream about it. What the hell do you do when someone you hate dies?"

Back in the parlor, Simon stood up gracefully and posed with an elbow on the mantelpiece. "Was this tragedy avoidable? The cast and crew of 'It's a Wonderful House' thinks so. Was this tragedy the fault of the producers? Certainly in part, since the killer was one of their camera crew -- one that a simple background check would have revealed." A clickable link to a file appeared on the screen. "Does a tragedy in which the producers were partly complicit, even by omission, void the contract of the cast? Our lawyer doesn't think so."

A black woman a bit older than me appeared on the screen; her caption said she was Marilyn Henderson, Wonder City attorney. "I have reviewed the contracts of all surviving cast members and I find nothing in it that would suggest that the manner or fact of Mr. deJong's death would void the agreement, as the producers of the show have claimed."

Back to Simon. "The cast and crew have discussed the matter, and, given our own limited resources and the comparatively limitless resources of PARABI and the producers of 'It's a Wonderful House', we feel a lawsuit would be worth less than the energy we would have to put into it. Our fans are the only good thing to come out of this experience, and so we decided that it would be most productive to give this information to you. If we manage to instill a little shame in the producers while we're at it, good." He shrugged and smiled, and Jeshri, Tom, and Lizzie came in from the wings (Tom in a suit, Jeshri in a little black dress, and Lizzie in a white blouse and black slacks). "Thanks for sticking with us. I, for one, will be glad to get back to the coffee shop."

"Me too," Lizzie said.

"I'm looking forward to my own apartment and my own truck," Tom said. "And about a month's worth of sleep."

"I love you guys, but I want my own roommates and my life back," Jeshri said, and they all nodded.

"And maybe some of us will go on to do stuff in the spotlight," Simon said. "Or maybe not."

"I'll still be on Twitter," Lizzie said.

"Me too," Jeshri said. "I've met some awesome people that way."

"I was thinking about writing a book about all this," Tom said thoughtfully.

"You better change my name," Lizzie said, punching him playfully in the arm.

"Mine too," Jeshri said. "And no wild imaginings about our 'alone time'."

The camera pulled back and back, the audio fading into an instrumental song that was nothing like the theme song, the former housemates moving into a group hug as they faded from view.

Credits rolled. At the end of the credits, on a black screen, the words, "In memory of Brandon deJong," appeared, and after a second, under that line, in fake typewriter script, "He was a jerk, but he was our jerk."

I sat back from the screen. "Hoooooo," I exhaled. "I hope they've got Ms. Henderson on retainer."

---

Note from the Author:

Sorry, y'all. I spent all day yesterday in a car, and just didn't have the brain juice left to post anything. I keep hoping things will get back to "normal" again after Thanksgiving, but I just know I'm kidding myself. :)

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At Present Low, But Will Soon Be Better

Ira's attention was snatched away from the chase by Jeshri's sudden lurch of dismay. He looked through her eyes and saw Brandon shored up against the river wall.

Brandon smiled briefly, wiping at the corner of his mouth. He tried to rise (a second time, apparently, according to Jeshri), but fell back against the wall. Tried again and failed again. He frowned and focused on the remaining group. "Hurts," he said, not very loudly.

Tom walked over quickly. "Did you hit your head?" he asked, crouching down next to his housemate.

"Uh," Brandon said, licking his lips. "I don't know?" He tried to reach up to touch the back of his head, but winced and dropped his hand to his side. "Hurts."

"What hurts?" Eartha said, standing a few feet from him.

"Um," Brandon said, trying a deep breath and making a pained noise. "Chest."

"He hit him in the chest," Jeshri said, reaching into her pocket and producing a cell phone.

"That won't work," Lizzie said to her, pointing at the phone.

Jeshri gave her a brief smile as the screen lit up under her fingertips. "Hardened. I work with electricity, remember?" She dialed and put the phone to her ear.

Brandon was frowning again, looking perplexed. "Can't... breathe right," he said between short breaths.

"He probably broke your ribs, dude," Tom said. "It's gonna hurt."

Brandon touched his chest vaguely, and his fingers caught in the strings of his hoodie. He wrenched them free impatiently. "Hurts," he said again. "A lot."

Jeshri was talking to the 911 operator. "Yes, supervillain combat at Staybird Park. No, he's run away toward town. We have an injured person here, though."

Ira looked at Brandon through Tom's eyes. He didn't like the ghastly grey color of Brandon's face, even allowing for the sodium vapor lamplight. Or the way Brandon's eyes were rolling. He's passing out, he said through the link. Try laying him back flat, son.

Tom needed Lizzie's help to stretch Brandon out on the chilly concrete. They bore with gritted teeth Brandon's pathetic hisses and whimpers, and Lizzie pulled off her own hoodie to drape over Brandon.

"Shock?" Tom said.

"Looks like it to me," Eartha said, peering. "I'll go to the front of the park to meet the ambulance." She zipped off, cautiously, in the direction the battle had gone. Meteor's head was not visible in the distance.

Oh, yes, Ira thought. He's in shock. Ira replayed what he'd seen of the blow through his memory. Oh, yes. Just like McMullin.

Can either of you take a pulse? he said into the link.

Lizzie said, Yes, I just finished my CPR cert at the Y. She knelt next to Brandon and fumbled for the pulse in his wrist.

Brandon was gasping for breath, short shallow inhalations through his teeth. His eyes were open, but slitted. "Thought he was my bro," he mumbled.

"He wasn't," Tom said, more than a little bitterly.

Jeshri knelt down and actually took Brandon's hand. "The ambulance is on its way."

I can barely feel his pulse, Lizzie said into the link.

The harsh panting suddenly stopped. "The fuck?" Tom said, only just barely stopped by Ira from unadvisedly shaking the man on the ground. "Brandon? Brandon?"

"He's not breathing," Jeshri said, eyes wide. "What can we do? We've got to do something!"

Mouth to mouth, Ira said, keeping the subsequent thought of for all the good it will do to himself. When none of the kids moved, he said, more urgently, Mouth to mouth, Lizzie. No compressions, I think.

Lizzie shoved Tom out of the way peremptorily and lurched forward. She carefully cleared Brandon's airway and started breathing for him.

In the distance, there was a faint wail of a siren.

"Just like McMullin," Ira said out loud at the table, rubbing his face. Watson looked at him, and he said, "Seen it before, in Korea. Corporal McMullin was hit by a boulder thrown by one of the bulletproofs on the other side. When they opened up his chest, he was full of blood."

Watson looked down at her phone. "Ambulance is 2 minutes away."

Ira looked back through the link, at the woman breathing for the man on the ground, another woman standing by worried, the man on his knees watching, all so very young. He hadn't felt this helpless since the Platinum Protector had died in his arms of a gut punch that not only pasted her insides but severed her spine. He drank his coffee and wished for something stronger. To toast McMullin, perhaps.

---

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Secret Identities Hide Many Things

"Move!" Megan hissed, springing to her feet and starting to run.

She felt more than saw Meteor catch up with her and whisk her into the air by catching her under the arms. She managed not to flail her suddenly relativley tiny size-32 feet in the air while this happened.

It was a matter of three giant strides across the park (she'd have to beg Ladybird to come out to fix the crushed bushes and snapped-off trees) and Megan was back on the ground.

Simon's empty trouser legs barely protruded from a fist-sized hole punched in the ground. The shredded sweater was nearby. A giant golden wolf crouched, snarling, between the housemates and the newcomer who was rising to his feet, a white man in midnight blue spandex and a billowing, hooded black cape.

A horrified shock of recognition rocked Megan back on her heels. Fuck! I know him!

Really? came Watson's interested query, over the flurry of other inquiries.

I met him my first day in town! Megan said, blank with horror as the man turned his sparkling, if somewhat sinister, large-chinned smile on the crowd. He was chasing the Merlin. Oh my god. Oh my god. I handed the Merlin to him. He said he'd been after him, and I just handed him over. I as good as killed him!

FOCUS! Renata's mental command poked Megan straight in the adrenal glands. Angst later, girlfriend, she added, a little more kindly.

The man had spun to face Megan and Meteor, and just seized Meteor's ankle and tossed her partly into the air, off balance. Meteor shrank rapidly as she fell, and she dropped with a crash into a copse of trees and boxwood hedges. He turned to Megan.

He had been trained to fight, somewhat. He knew how to throw a punch, for instance. Megan's arm registered a significant impact as she blocked -- she guessed that Watson's Class 5 estimate might be a little low.

Unfortunately for him, she'd been trained better.

When he skidded to a stop, shoring up against the lamp post recently vacated by Brandon, Simon pounced on him. The man twisted away, rolling to his feet. Simon's flashing teeth caught and tore off the hood and cape, leaving his face exposed. His eminently recognizable tiny eyes and birthmark shared space with a bleeding scrape across his cheek where one fang had scored him.

"Bro?" Brandon said hesitantly. Events had apparently confused him.

The cameraman's eyes narrowed and he slapped something on his belt. The camerawoman, Eartha, yelped and dropped her rig as it sparked vigorously.

The streetlight flickered briefly, but the hardened Wonder City infrastructure held.

"No more film," he said, sneering. "Just you all, dying."

"God, I've wanted to do this forever," Lizzie said, and, raising her arms toward him, dumped a vast red explosion of energy into the killer.

---

Note from the Author:
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Battlestations!

I settled into what I call my long-haul chair. It's intensely soft and it floats on some sort of magnetic cloud and is more stable than the floor, so even if I lose my shit and try to get up without the proper escape sequence, it won't totter over or anything. All my monitoring systems were online and checked. All my robots were nearby to try to minimize anything physical that I might try to do to myself. I had taken my pain medications and my focus-enhancing medications. At hand was an automated system that could detect incipient psychic flares (which are like solar flares, except they disrupt mental processes rather than electromagnetic processes) and either administer a fast-acting intramuscular tranquilizer or a hard electric shock, depending on the predicted magnitude of the flare.

I took a few deep breaths. It had been a while since I last did this. Being the nexus of a telepathic network is a surprising lot of work, primarily filtering of content and translation of the way that a given person thinks about things into a mutually understandable language. Doing this for a group of non-telepaths simultaneously requires the most exacting walls and split-second multitasking. I expected, when I agreed, to be wrecked for at least a week afterward.

I had remembered to go to the bathroom before I started. My mother had crammed some valuable life lessons into my brain on those long car rides to the Shore.

"Imaging on," I said, and the computer flipped up photographs of my telepathic targets. Which first? I contemplated the Wonderful House crew and decided, as I had expected, that I felt the most connection to Simon, so I focused on his photo, paying minute attention to the perfect lines of his jaw and cheekbones, the tight ripples of his brown-black hair, the yellow eyes behind their tinted shields...

Hello, Mr. Canis, I said when the tingle of contact rippled down my spine. His was a warm, quick-moving mind, full of an idealism I'd not had since I was eight or so.

Hello! he replied, trying not to sound startled, though I knew he was. A pleasure to, uh, meet you.

He had the pleasantly repressed mind of someone who has been trained to cope with psionics. The pleasure's mine, Mr. Canis. I stopped short of telling him I was a fan. Nothing like having a telepathic fangirl in your head to make you nervous.

Now it was easy. I looked at the others through Simon's eyes (and his other senses, which were distractingly acute) and added them to my collection: Jeshri, whose mind was a sharp stacatto of thoughts like blows; Tom, who was in an agony of fast-moving anxiety; Lizzie, whose world was always a little blurry; Megan, who was quivering with a steel-jacketed terror; Suzanne, whose inner world flew apart in pieces and crashed back together with her heartbeat; Watson, whose turbulent ideas had parted and smoothed for my entry; and to my surprise, Suzanne's father-in-law Ira, who was abuzz with excitement and nostalgia.

I stopped short of picking up the camerawoman, and after a quick consultation with Watson, left her out. She had not, after all, consented to a telepathic link and all its risks. I did scan her quickly, though, and discovered that she was Jeshri's camerawoman, her name was Eartha (yes, named for Eartha Kitt), she was, in fact, para, and she was rather nervous and excited about all this. At least they'd warned her it might be dangerous.

I saved the ghost for last. Meteor was alarmingly present for someone possessing another person, and I only got the faintest whiffs of the host personality. I wondered if Watson had set this up to see if I could pry Meteor loose from her moorings. I would believe in that sort of Machiavellian scheming from her.

All right, I said to them all. Everyone's in the loop.

I naturally picked up things I shouldn't know from their subconscious emotional levels. It shouldn't have surprised me that Megan and Simon had a history, I suppose, but it did; they'd played it very cool in Megan's one appearance on-screen. Watson and Megan were lovers, and both of them had been involved with the woman possessed by Meteor, resulting in some spectacularly conflicted emotions. Suzanne and Simon, of course, were desperate for each other. Lizzie had mad crushes on all three of her housemates (that was another surprise). Meteor hated everyone equally for being strange, perverted, and living (that was not a surprise). Lizzie also felt like she really should have gone before she left the house; I had to filter that like whoa or everyone would need to pee, including me.

Thank you, Watson said once I'd delivered all the general greetings. Her mental voice was crisp and snappy, and she was also speaking aloud for Eartha's benefit. You all know where you need to be. Megan, Meteor, you start now. House crew, give them two minutes and then start strolling to your destination.

What about you? Jeshri said. She was speaking aloud as well.

I'll be only a few blocks away with Suzanne and Ira, coordinating with Renata's help, Watson said.

There was a wisp of an apology as soon as my first name came out. Nothing like being inside each other's minds to bring everyone to a first-name basis, is there? I assured her.

Amusement came back from Watson, and I turned my attention to following Megan and Meteor.

The two of them proceeded in silence that was angry on Meteor's part -- I could tell she hadn't been entirely warned that she'd have to work with Megan -- and irritated on Megan's part -- because Meteor was snappish and because she had a terrible conflict between wanting to hate Meteor and having some sympathy for the girl. They were trying not to be noticeable as they hurried to the dilapidated dock where they were to hunker down and wait. Meteor, growing, could get them to the meeting place in a few seconds rather than the couple of minutes it would normally take to run there. I would have to do a tight job of filtering on these two: Meteor not only hated Megan but was terrified of her, particularly of being touched by her. A contagion sort of terror. Homophobia at its most refined. Lovely.

I watched the Wonderful House crew trying to stroll casually to the appointed meeting place. Jeshri and Lizzie kept exchanging reassuring hand-squeezes. Tom was concentrating on looking as intimidating as possible, throwing back his broad shoulders and puffing out his chest. Simon was quivering with nerves, paying exquisite attention to every breeze and every sound. He was worried about being able to get out of his clothes fast enough, and so had worn a thin knit v-neck sweater and a loose pair of linen trousers -- things he knew he could rip easily.

Watson was chattering easily and meaninglessly with Suzanne and Ira. Ira was peppering her with questions that even I could tell came from long experience -- no wonder Watson wanted him there as part of her strategy team. If nothing else, he could make a general prediction of the behavior of most sorts of supervillains.

I took a deep breath and consciously relaxed the muscles that had tensed up during this preparation.

It was almost midnight.

---

Note from the Author:
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And So the Argument Began All Over Again

I was sorting through my email when I found a message from my friend Veha's assistant, asking if I would have time to contact Veha soon.  There was something about the note (possibly the three instances of "please") that made me think that Veha was feeling particularly lonely with Ruth off-planet.

Oum Veha is the only known living man with Class 10 para powers.  It displeased the various First and Second World nations that prided themselves on being the sole homes of Class 10s that Veha was born in Cambodia, just after the American evacuation in 1975.  Of course, his powers didn't manifest until many years later, but some idiot US politicians still seemed to think there would have been a chance to "rescue" him "if only."  He's still in Cambodia now, despite many offers of "asylum" from other countries, living in a small city on the south coast and powering it with his immense electrical generation powers.  He has amassed a small fortune by selling power to Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, but insists on using his powers gratis for his impoverished homeland.

The problem is, of course, that like me, he has problems controlling his powers.  He can't touch a computer for fear of frying it.  In fact, anything sensitive to electromagnetic impulses is generally better off far away from Veha.  He's better now than he was as a teenager; he knows how to rein in his temper, for instance.  But still, the only person who can safely spend a long time in a room with him without a Faraday cage in the way -- much less touch him -- is Ruth. She visits him weekly.  I understand from Ruth that they play a lot of chess and she spends a lot of time fending off his romantic advances.  I understand from Veha that they play a lot of chess and he spends a lot of time fending off her romantic advances.  They're kind of cute that way.

I'm one of the only people who he can communicate with remotely without a lot of shielding and fuss.  (A few of his assistants are also telepaths so there's an emergency line if he EM-pulses his own location.)  We exchange emails to decide when communication happens; thus this email.

I sent a note back, offering a few times that afternoon or the next, and went on with my email and other work chores.  One of my clients cancelled, another one arrived late; it was a relatively normal day.  By the time I managed to check in again, Veha's assistant had accepted "any of the times that afternoon or evening."  So I took myself off to my greenhouse with a glass of iced tea and a ham-and-cheese sandwich, arranged myself comfortably in my favorite Adirondack chair, and opened up a narrow thread of telepathy across the planet.

Renata! Thank you! Veha said after I'd knocked.  My mama taught me right, you know.

Veha, what's up? I said.

Oh, you know, the usual, he said, and I could see his big desk laid out before him: piles of paper, a manual typewriter, fountain pens.  I was just wondering how you were.

You were lonely, I said. There's no point prevaricating in telepathic communication.

Yes, he said cheerily. Any idea when Ruth will be home?

If she didn't tell you, why should I know better? I said.

You've been helping her with her daughter, he said.

I wouldn't call it 'helping', I said. I think that my input is what sent her off-planet.

She doesn't honestly think Sophie's been blasted out into space, does she? he said.

Stranger things have happened, I said, avoiding the straight answer. Which was, yes, it was possible that Josh Feldstein had done to Sophie what had been done to him. The cases were similar enough. But no, I didn't think Ruth could find her. Space is a big place, no matter what they show in the comic books.

Veha sighed. I wish I could help her somehow, he said.

I could catch glimpses of the extra sentiment behind the statement. Veha, quit that, I said. I know you've got the world's biggest crush on her, but I really don't need to see it.

Sorry, he said, embarrassed.

And you know nothing's ever going to happen, I said. The whole 'woman of iron' mystique goes deeper than her invulnerability. I gave him a quick glimpse of Ruth on video screen a year or two ago, saying, "I hope the man has better sense than settling for the one woman he can touch. I'm old enough to be his mama."

She is nothing like my mother, Veha said, amused.

You know what she means, I said. Hell, I'm old enough to be your mama.

You are both fine-looking women for your ancient, ancient years, he said.

Brat, I said.

Anyway, I'm sorry, he said. I'll try to keep my imagination under control. Anything new in your world?

So I told him about It's a Wonderful House and all it's bizarre appeal. He could understand; the boy had his own obsessions and hobbies. One needs to have them when one's life is as isolated as ours.

I reached the part about accidentally stumbling on the live feed, and he said, Are you sure you didn't end up with a line to him, Renata? I remember that one time a couple of years ago...

When I'd stumbled over something horrible in the mind of one of my client's parents and had had that psychic thread stuck in my teeth, as it were, for months. Ruth had come into that eventually, making sure the right evidence was gathered and the man prosecuted. I didn't like my vicarious taste of prison life, though; it reminded me too much of the institution.

I'm sure, I said. I'd gone through every ritual and exercise I could remember to exorcise the touch of the serial killer's mind. I was relatively certain I'd managed to forget what it felt like sufficiently that I wouldn't wander into his mind again.

And no identification either, he said.

Nothing useful, I said. Maybe it limits the suspects, though. We'll find him.

You're not still pursuing this, Renata? Veha said, alarmed.

I have to, Veha, I said. This waste of flesh killed one of my niece's friends. He'll kill more if he's not stopped.

You're not a superhero, he said.

No, I said. I'm just a person.

There was a conscious silence, but I could feel the torrent of things he was trying to decide to say.

It's not like I'm going out in public or anything, I said. There's this journalist who's very hot to find him. She's doing most of the work. I just gave her my tip. I just... want to feel like I helped.

You help so many people, Renata, he said. You help me all the time.

Thank you, Veha, I said. And you help me too, you know. You're one of my best friends.

We had a little rush of emotion then that wasn't very coherent, and I felt obliged to cut things short before we both got more embarrassed. My mother's supposed to call soon, I said. I have to get back to my office.

Thanks for calling, he said. Talk to you soon? Let me know if you hear from Ruth.

After all that, I was barely in a condition to talk to Mama, but I managed. She looks forward to the calls very much... and so do I. I hated to reschedule on her if I didn't really have to.

"Reesy told me your friend came to Yanaye's funeral," Mama said after the usual preliminaries.

"Did she?" I said. "I don't know her that well, but I know she's interested in finding the killer."

"Reesy said she looked like she was a hard kind of white woman," Mama said, and I glimpsed her entirely wrong image of Suzanne Feldstein, somewhere between a Jersey Shore caricature and a New York City marketer.

"She's that man's widow," I said. "That man who flooded downtown at Christmas."

"Oh, him," she said. "No wonder she looked wrung out. Still, it was nice of her to come."

"Yes," I said. "It was." And, I thought, she had probably spent the whole time wondering why she'd come and wishing she were anywhere else. She seemed nice, but hardly the sort to cope well when surrounded by black folks.

And the conversation turned to which grandchild was doing what. Mama hadn't really liked being a mother -- with a problem child like me, who could blame her? -- but she loved being a grandmother.

"You know," Mama said thoughtfully, and I recognized and dreaded the tone, "I bet you would be a fabulous mother."

"Mama," I said, keeping my tone level, "I am 45 years old. I am well beyond the point at which I could have a child."

"You have all those friends," Mama said. "All those scientist friends. And you haven't had your change yet. You've still got time."

"I would make a terrible mother," I said, clenching my fists against the old discussion. "You know that. You know how much you hated the way Grandma got all up in your business. Think of me. Child would run away from me like... like Lady Justice's children did."

"Your grandmother was an evil woman," my mother said flatly. I winced away from the abundance of hatred Mama had for her mother, who had been, in fact, an evil old woman as far as I could tell as a child -- she'd been dead by the time I got out of the institution. "You are not."

"I could be," I said. "I wouldn't trust myself here alone with a child. There's no one could help me down here, and if I lost my temper, I'd be worse than Grandma ever had been with her willow switch."

Mama sighed. "I know there's no convincing you that you'd be fine. I just have to try sometimes."

"Reesy and Lashawna gave you grandchildren," I said. "And Michael will too, soon, I hear."

That got us off on the subject of my little brother and his latest amorous adventures, and spared my sanity for another day.

When I finally got off the phone, I was irritated to discover that I only had ten or so more minutes of It's a Wonderful House to watch. (Of course I could watch it recorded. I've recorded all the episodes. But there's something about watching it immediately and being able to get onto the fan forums and... yes, I am crazy, why do you ask?) I kicked back there in my office to watch what was left.

There was Simon, looking very fine in a grey tweed vest, white buttondown shirt, and black slacks, sitting in the kitchen while Jeshri, who was in her purple yoga pants and matching hoodie, was cooking something in a wok. She happened to glance over her shoulder when Simon made a horrible grimace. "Oh, what did he say now?" Jeshri said.

The view cut away to Brandon, who was in his hideous bathroom, dripping wet and muscular and supposedly -- to the Brandon fans on the forums -- looking very attractive with just the white towel wrapped around his waist, though he doesn't work out nearly as much as Tom. He was shaving, but had paused to let out a bray of laughter. "Man," he said to his cameraman who was, I think, the last person willing to tolerate his company any more, "it was awesome. She was so drunk she didn't know what was going on."

The view cut back to Simon, who said, with a curl to his lip, "He's bragging about 'banging' a drunk girl on his night off."

"Tuesday?" Jeshri said, lifting the big wok effortlessly and scooping the contents into a bowl. "You'd think he'd be more... tolerable or something if he got laid so recently."

Lizzie shuffled into the room. She was looking less perky since her arrest; no doubt she was dealing with a lot of press and other issues. There was a stubbornly insane group of people online who hate her and spend a lot of time spamming her Twitter and other social media with vitriol for disobeying her sainted papa; I'm guessing that was part of what was wearing on her. Simon and Jeshri both paused to greet her, watching her worriedly.

Lizzie said hi to both of them, and walked straight to the kitchen sink, which was stacked high with dishes. She pulled as large a stack of dirty dishes out of the sink as she could carry, and under Simon and Jeshri's astonished gazes, walked out with them, saying, "I'll wipe up the floor in a few minutes."

The next thing we saw was Lizzie stepping between the betoweled Brandon and his room, holding the stack of dishes.

"Hey," he said obliviously. "'Scuse."

She looked up at him with a dreadfully impassive face and said, "Are you going to wash the dishes tonight?"

"Well," he said, backpedaling a step and glancing at the camera with one of his "can you believe this?" expressions. "I've got a date, see..."

Lizzie threw a plate at him, smashing accurately into his bare chest. "Are you going to wash the dishes tonight?"

"Jesus, what the BLEEP?" he said, stepping back.

She smashed another one into his chest. The bowl shattered, spraying him liberally with filthy water. "Are you going to wash the dishes tonight?" she said relentlessly.

"You're so BLEEPing crazy! Get away from me, you BLEEPing trailer trash whore!" he screamed, slipping on the water and sliding a step down the stairs.

She got him in the head with the next one, and he was covered with moldy tomato sauce. "Are you going to wash the dishes tonight?" she said again.

"Jesus BLEEP, yes, BLEEP, yes, just please BLEEPing go AWAY, you crazy BLEEPing BLEEP!" he shrieked.

"Good," she said, adding, "Think fast," before flinging all the rest of the dishes at him.

The view cut to Simon and Jeshri daintily stepping aside as Brandon fell backwards down the stairs, arms full of dishes. He landed, as one would expect, with a crash of china and glassware, and a large black rectangle over the part revealed by the falling-away of his towel.

Simon looked at Jeshri, who was blocking her own view of the offending Brandon-part with an outstretched hand, and said, "Why didn't we think of that?"

---

From the Author:
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Daddy

I suppose it was inevitable, really. The tabloids had been chattering about it for a couple of weeks. But it was still a shock, in the last fifteen minutes of the program, to see the square-jawed, broad-shouldered, florid white man on the doorstep of the Wonderful House. He had mostly brown hair with a few touches of grey starting at the temples.

Brandon, of course, opened the door. He gave the man one of his lazy smiles and said, "Delivery?" despite the obvious lack of a uniform.

The man's fists bunched, and his shoulders flexed back under the rumpled flannel shirt. "I'm here for my daughter."

There was a brief flicker of surprise on Brandon's face and his pale eyebrows rose. "Sure. Come on in." He stepped back from the door, and the man thumped heavily over the threshold.

In truth, I'd been expecting something like this since WonderfulHouseWatch and several other online fansites (yes, all right, I admit it, I was well and truly hooked) had posted interviews with the director and the producers, where they all dropped broad, mysterious, cryptic hints that Lizzie's little outburst with the boiling water had been set off by a messy and abusive family background. She might have kept her real name secret, but her family, wherever they were, knew who she was, and so did their neighbors. No matter how small a town she came from, they'd have to come out of the woodwork and defend themselves -- and, in fact, the smaller the town, the more they had at stake.

Simon and Jeshri were hanging out, chatting, draped bonelessly over the furniture in the living room when the middle-aged man stepped in. One of their cameras pulled back for a full-length shot: he was wearing work boots and jeans that looked like he'd slept in them, as well as the red-dominant plaid flannel. I guessed he'd left his coat in the car, wherever that was, since the week had been warm, for early March, but not that warm.

The man glowered around and said, "I'm Robert Maxwell, and I'm here for my daughter."

Simon bounced up to his bare feet. "I'm Simon Canis," he said, extending a hand. "I guess you're talking about Lizzie?"

The man gave Simon a curled-lip glance and ignored the proffered hand. "I'm talking about Robyn."

Simon let his hand drop and considered Maxwell coolly through his tinted lenses. "I'll go ask around and see if we have a Robyn here," he said, and strode toward the stairs.

The man beat him to the stairs in two long strides and shouldered past him, taking the stairs two at a time. Simon sprinted after him and grabbed the man by the belt, yanking him to a halt at the top of the stairs with a strength that surprised Maxwell (and me).

"I'll say it once, nicely, sir," Simon said genially enough, worming around the big man to stand in front of him. "I'll ask around. If there's a Robyn here who wants to talk to you, she'll come down to see you."

Maxwell's hands clenched and unclenched. Simon casually removed his glasses and stared up at the man's face. Maxwell twitched visibly under that disturbing yellow gaze, then he turned and descended the stairs like a sullen child. Simon blinked as if appalled and waved a hand in front of his nose.

Back in the living room, Brandon lolled on a chair, grinning like a hyena. Jeshri had consolidated herself in the corner of the sofa, her bare feet not actually tucked under her, just folded up onto the seat with her. One of her hands dangled, seemingly at random, over the back of the couch, but the camera angled so we could see her fingers were just inches from the nearest electrical outlet.

Maxwell stood awkwardly, his surprise arrival effectively cockblocked. I could see anger and frustration stewing in his face, though.

Lizzie came down the stairs, chin up, shoulders back, jaw tense, a woman determined to go to her execution like a queen. Simon managed to descend behind her with just enough presence to let everyone know he was there without detracting from her entrance.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced over the room. Brandon couldn't look more like a train wreck spectator if he'd brought popcorn. Jeshri was coiled tensely. Maxwell was a monolith.

Finally, Lizzie said, "Hi, Dad."

Maxwell opened his mouth to say something, then looked around at the witnesses. He said, peremptorily, "Robyn. Talk. Now." He then turned, at random, and went through a door -- the door the viewers all knew led to the hallway to the kitchen.

I could see Simon visibly biting his lip, and then mouthing He's drunk to Lizzie behind the man's back.

Lizzie looked at Simon, then Jeshri, and followed.

We then saw Maxwell in the kitchen. He turned to face Lizzie, then bellowed, "YOU! OUT!" to the cameraperson, advancing threateningly. The camera backed hastily out of the room.

And then we saw them in the kitchen. Lizzie cast a glance around the room, possibly reassuring herself of the positioning of the hidden cameras.

Maxwell paced for a moment, then turned on her. "You have shamed us," he said, thick finger pointing at her and shaking just a little, like his voice. His knuckles were knobby and red with the beginnings of arthritis.

I could see Lizzie trying for one of Simon's more ironic expressions. "You? How?"

"We had agreed," he said, not withdrawing the finger an iota, "to keep the little matter of your para power in the family."

"That's why I didn't use the name you gave me," Lizzie said.

"Like none of our neighbors would recognize you?" Maxwell said, the rage in his voice almost erasing the question mark.

"Like anyone in that desert in Nebraska matters?" Lizzie said, and flinched violently as Maxwell raised his hand.

He didn't swing, though, and lowered it after a moment's silence. "Not only did you rub your promise in our faces --" he began.

"What promise?" she shouted. "I never promised not to tell anyone! I'm an adult and I needed to register, because you are welcome to ruin your lives, but I'll be damned if I'll let you ruin mine by getting me arrested!"

Suddenly, we had a small close-up of Simon's face in the upper corner of the screen: his eyes were closed, but you could almost see his ears swiveling.

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "-- but now you're spreading these lies about your family," he hissed, pulling a crumpled sheet of tabloid newsprint from his hip pocket.

"I never said anything to those reporters," Lizzie said, looking like she was trying to press herself back into the kitchen counter. "That was all guesses from the producers." She gritted her teeth and glared up at him furiously. I realized he'd closed the distance between them. "Besides, they aren't that far off the truth, and you know it, you bastard!"

Backed into a corner as she was, she couldn't dodge the massive fist that buried itself in her stomach. The breath went out of her with a *woof* and he pinned her against the counter with his fist, yanking her head back by the hair with his free hand. "You're coming home with me, you little bitch," Maxwell snarled, "if I have to break every bone in your body first."

In the upper corner, Simon's eyes popped open and he was a blur of motion out of frame.

Lizzie retched, her arms flailing backward for the counter. I -- and the camera controller, given the zoom -- realized she was reaching for the knife block. She knocked it over and cut herself scrabbling for a blade, any blade.

The kitchen door burst open, spilling Simon and Jeshri into the room. Jeshri reached over the table beside the door, jammed a nail file into the electrical outlet there, and instantly lit up with blue crackling fire. Simon dropped into a crouch, both hands abruptly furry and full of claws.

"Let her go," Jeshri said through her teeth. "I can hit you so that no electricity touches her. Try me."

"Or me," Simon rumbled thickly, and I noticed that his face was lengthening as we watched, huge fangs sprouting from his jaws.

Maxwell was distracted by the paranormal menaces in the door, which meant that Lizzie managed to stab one of the knives into him, just as her eyes were rolling back in her head and just before her hands went limp.

Maxwell screamed and jumped back, pawing at where a paring knife was buried to the hilt in the meat of his shoulder. Simon pounced, knocking Maxwell flat on his back, still screaming. Lizzie slid to the floor, apparently keeping just enough presence of mind to keep her head from hitting anything on the way down.

Jeshri yanked the file out of the socket and dragged out her cell phone.

The camera cut to the police, watching the EMTs carry Maxwell out on a stretcher and advising him on his Miranda rights. Cut again to the police questioning Simon and Jeshri, and even Brandon, who grinned and gave the camera thumbsups when he thought the cops weren't looking. Some other EMTs talking quietly to Lizzie, who was still sitting on the floor of the kitchen, shaking her head, her face streaked with tears. The police talking to Lizzie and then, police walking Lizzie out in handcuffs.

Tom arrived just then, and he paused on the front steps to stare after the police. He looked up at the doorway, where Simon and Jeshri stood, faces grim. "I go out for one day, just one day," Tom exclaimed, "and look at what you people get up to!"

I shut the television view off and went over to the fansites, where outrage was spilling over that Lizzie -- some people insisted on calling her Robyn -- had been arrested. Frankly, I was surprised that Simon and Jeshri hadn't been arrested as well. The policy on domestic calls in Wonder City was to arrest everyone and let the judge sort them out, because domestics can escalate to cosmic proportions here, given a chance.

The top comment on the Wonderful Forum, "liked" by well over 400 people, was, "It takes a special kind of stupid to go on national television to beat your daughter."

Reader, I hit "like" as well.

---

From the Author:

ETA: Shadesong has hit her fundraising goal, because Jack's surgery cost less than expected!

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Even Those With Only One Head

I tuned in late because I had a difficult patient session run long, and I wanted to swim and take my meds before I sat down to watch the inevitable drama.

When the picture came on, I saw Lizzie and Simon in their khaki trousers, polo shirts, and aprons, serving up lattes with a smile to customers at the Great Scot. I confess I was more intrigued by the coffee shop than what they were doing, and spent a lot of attention -- part of this was my meds at work, making it hard for me to pay attention to just one thing -- looking at the details of the background: the machines and their muffled screeches, the rows of Great Scot merchandise on shelves, the patter of the complicated orders, the bad art on the walls, even the notes they were making on the paper cups were enthralling. I'll never see the inside of one of these shops live, and for some reason, the busy-ness of them is fascinating and appalling in equal doses.

Then they switched to following Jeshri at her job. She was wearing a plain gray coverall with the power company's patch on the left shoulder, and she was rapidly scaling a telephone pole -- with all safety gear in place -- to examine a blown transformer at the top. A few men -- one white, two black or Hispanic -- down below, wearing similar coveralls, were watching her and talking among themselves.

The narrator was making bad puns, but the worst was cut to a moment later, with Brandon saying, "That's what she does for a living? Man, she could climb my pole any day." He started his Beavis-and-Butthead laugh, and high-fived his cameraman.

Then Tom was weightlifting, wearing a ripped muscle shirt and shorts. He was sweating, though I suspected that he'd been oiled to enhance the effect of his gleaming muscles flexing heavily. He was making the faces the weightlifters always seem to make. Brandon poked his head into the room and said, "Man, you work too hard."

Tom grunted without even looking.

"Do you do kung fu too?" Brandon asked, doing a faux Bruce Lee pose.

Tom rolled his eyes and didn't answer.

"Aw, c'mon, man," Brandon said. "You haven't talked to me for days now."

"That's because," Tom said, punctuating his words with bicep curls, "bitching at me for 'what your people did to my uncle over there' without knowing that my parents lost everything in the evacuation of Saigon is one of the stupidest racist-ass things to come out of your mouth yet."

"Well, sorry," Brandon said, without sounding at all contrite. "What was the evacuation of Saigon?"

Tom's hands on the barbell visibly tightened. He clenched his jaws together and turned his back completely on Brandon.

The image changed to Jeshri in the kitchen, presumably after work. She looked into the refrigerator and scowled, then checked the freezer. She strode out to the living room where Lizzie and Simon were playing videogames. "Did either of you eat any of my food?" Jeshri said.

Simon looked up and frowned. "Not to my knowledge. I thought that Hot Pocket was mine..."

Jeshri waved that away and looked inquiringly at Lizzie. "Nope," Lizzie said.

"Then that leaves," Jeshri said, a little too dramatically, "Tom or you-know-who."

"Tom would only eat it if it was mind-bogglingly healthy," Simon said, looking back at the screen. "You know who my bet's on."

"I wish like hell we could vote him off the island," Jeshri said, massaging her temples.

Jeshri stomped upstairs and pounded on Brandon's door. He opened it, still wearing his trademark khakis and Oxford buttondown with the collar turned up. "Hey, Jesh," he said.

"Eat your own food, asshole," Jeshri snarled, spun on her heel and started for the stairs.

"Oh, Jesh, don't be like that!" Brandon said, stepping into the hall after her. "I'll make it up to you!"

She turned back around and put out her hand, palm up. "All right," she said, pursing her lips against the anger that I could tell wanted to rip him up one side and down the other. When he stared at her blankly, she pointed into the palm of her hand. "It's called mun-nee," she enunciated. "Green stuff. Bread. Which brings to mind the question of how you managed to eat an entire loaf in an afternoon, but I'm not asking it."

"Naw," he said, with his "aw shucks" grin and back-of-head rub. "Let me take you out to dinner!"

She stared at him disbelievingly. "You think that I would want to go out with you? And that would somehow make up for you eating my food?"

I knew it was going to happen, but it was still shocking. The good ol' boy vanished in an instant. "What the hell, *****?" he shouted, taking a menacing step toward her. "You're such a f***ing ****tease, you were playing 'hard to get' --" he sang the words through his nose -- "so I came after you, and you turn your nose up at dinner with me? You ****ing *****! You're not going to get better **** in this house!"

"Who says I want any **** in this house?" Jeshri shouted back, still standing her ground in the face of the much larger, angry man. "And I wouldn't touch your diseased toothpick with someone else's ten foot pole, you ****ing asshole!"

Tom burst out of his room at this point, but hesitated, staring at the small Indian woman, fists balled, feet planted, glaring up at the red-faced white man.

"You go, girl," I said, tensely leaning toward the television.

Jeshri sighed and looked at her camera. She gave a small, close-lipped smile, and went down the stairs.

I realized that the commercial break we were having was the last one in the show. How the hell were they going to top that one for drama?

More glimpses of life in the house, time passing. In the second floor bathroom, we could see Jeshri's collection of things -- makeup, hair products, skin products -- and a small clutch of soap and shampoo that was apparently Tom's. Simon has a few hair products, a hair pick, and a variety of dental cleaning items -- mouthwashes, different types of floss, an electric toothbrush. The camera shows him brushing his teeth in the morning, shirtless in his loose cotton pajama bottoms, the curved symmetrical scars on his chest showing up brightly against his brown skin.

"Why do I have so many dental products?" he says, apparently repeating a question, appearing baffled. "Because who ever would be intimidated by my flashing fangs if I had fillings in them?"

We see the third floor bathroom, in an astonishing state of disarray -- towels on the floor, shampoo and other bottles heaped on the small counter and in the corners of the shower. Lizzie is staring in at the door, lip curled. We see her a few minutes later, downstairs, saying to Simon and Jeshri, "Guys? Would it be all right if I used this bathroom from now on?"

The other two looked at her in surprise. "You're willing to let him have his own bathroom?" Jeshri said, eyebrows lifted.

Lizzie looked away. "I don't want to have to clean up after him," she said. "I've done enough of that... I mean, it's not like he even seems to try to aim."

"EW!" Simon and Jeshri said in stereo, both of them waving their arms and making faces. "That's fine!" Simon added. "Just don't take forever in the shower in the morning!"

Later, evidently, Lizzie was cooking herself macaroni and cheese from a box. She stood at the stove in her jeans and t-shirt and sneakers, stirring the pasta to make sure it didn't stick to the pan. Brandon strolled into the room behind her.

"I love to see a woman in the kitchen!" he exclaimed with a grin.

She didn't turn, twitch, or in any way acknowledge him.

"I mean, isn't that the way life is supposed to be?" he said, getting another high-five from his cameraman. "The little lady in the kitchen, making dinner, the man coming home from a hard day at work..." He sashayed closer to Lizzie. "Hi, honey, I'm hoooome....!"

I think he put his hand on her lower back, leaning close to her making that kissy fishface some boys think is cute. What I know happened was that she spun like lightning and hit him full in the face with the pot of boiling water.

He reeled back with a shout, then kept shouting, "Ow! ****! ****! ****! Help!" as his skin turned a lovely shade of lobster. I didn't forget he was "modestly" invulnerable.

Lizzie stared at him, jaw slack, and the pot dropped from her hand. The camera didn't linger on her, but I think she dropped it because her hands were shaking too hard to hold it.

The door to the living room burst open, and Simon, Jeshri, and Tom stood there, gawping, as steam rose off Brandon.

Lizzie gave out a little sound like a moan and ran from the room, out the other kitchen door.

The three in the door immediately went after her, Simon bolting ahead, Tom on his heels, and Jeshri at the door when Brandon shouted, "What about me?"

Jeshri paused, looked over her shoulder, and said, "Your buddy, the cameraman, can help you. Once he's finished getting a good shot of your face."

The credits rolled as the door shut behind her.

"Oh, my," I said. "Oh, my, my, my. That girl's got something eating her inside-out."

---

From the Author:
I'm sure that all of them, at this point, are wondering if $25,000 is enough.

Tip o' the photons to my wife, who came up with the idea of the line from The Hobbit for the title.

Wonder City Stories has been nominated for the Rose & Bay Award! Check out all the nominees in all the categories here. I'd love for you to vote for WCS. And please do consider voting for Dave or Lucid (I mean aerynvale or badfaun!) in the patron category.

I'm posting twice weekly during February. Thank you for all your comments! I love them! They are my precious! Yessss, my preccciousss.

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