***ALEX***
The second Josh and I get to the hotel room where he and his dad are staying, he eyeballs the bed and jumps onto it. With a loud yawn, he snuggles into his pillow and says, "I soooooo gotta crash." Ahmad and Firdaus look like they want to do the same, so they sink into chairs on one side of the room. They don't nod off, though. Judging from the way they're looking around the large, opulent room - the same way AK and I are looking around - this is their first time in this fancy-ass suite.
AK sits next to Firdaus, and together with Ahmad, they start to talk. I'm about to join in, but I change my mind because Josh is calling to me. Not for real, not out loud or even telepathically. But I see him lying on his side, tensed up like he's ready to jump into action at any second.
Not unlike me, I don't think.
I sit by him, on the floor so he looks down on me. "What's up, doc?" he asks in a truly terrible Bugs Bunny voice. Not sure what that accent is, but I'm pretty sure Bugs was meant to sound like he was from New York, not Chicago.
"Nothing but me wanting to shoot ice at the walls," I say.
"Just don't stare at 'em too long, Kingpin." I look at him blankly, and then he adds, "You know, the big bad guy from Daredevil?"
It only clicks in my mind because I've seen a different incarnation of the same guy in Ultimate Spider-Man comics. "I haven't seen Daredevil," I admit.
"You haven't? What kind of Marvel fanboy are you?"
"The kind with no Netflix at home and all my friends don't have it either."
"I have it," AK says with a raised hand. "When we get out of this shit, I'll give you my password. Just don't try and get on after midnight, 'cause that's when I chill with myself and Oliver Queen. Deal?"
"Deal," I say offhandedly before turning back to Josh. "Let me guess - you're the kind of guy who unwinds to good music too?"
"How'd you guess?"
I fish my phone from my pocket and go to Pandora, putting on one of my many 80s stations. "Great minds think alike. Though I'm guessing you're neurotypical, unlike me."
"I didn't have that terminology growing up..." Josh's voice trails off for a second as he bobs his head to the classic synthpop. "I've done my research. As far as I know, I'm neurotypical. But then I've never been officially diagnosed with anything."
"Self-identifying's no less valid," I say. "Look at me. They told me I've got a disorder called hyperlexia, but they never said anything about autism. I had to figure that part out on my own." I look up again and see him letting go of his pillow. My eyes follow his hands, locating large scars on his palms.
Stigmata.
They exist.
"They're not as ugly as they look at first glance," Josh says reassuringly. "They've gotten a little less obtrusive with time, you know?" He pokes at his left-palm scar, a quarter-sized spot of dark red showing prominently against his skin, especially since his palms are lighter in tone than the rest of his skin. More in line with my color.
I feel more than a bit of revulsion, though, at the thought of how he got those scars. "Bloody Romans."
He wrings his hands, hiding the scars on his palms, but not the ones on the other sides of his hands. These are smaller, but darker. "Yeah...there's a reason why, even to this day, you still see so many bad guys looking like Romans. Especially futuristic Romans."
"The epitome of decadence." I look around the hotel room. This is far from Romanesque, but it's still one of the richest places I've ever been in. Even Balthazar, though it's a boarding school, has a certain starkness to its architecture. A little more like an Ionic column than the Corinthian one that is this place.
The song playing on my phone stops, replaced with the theme song from Fringe. Josh whistles appreciatively at the sound, as does Ahmad, who says, "How'd you know I loved that show?"
"It's my ringtone." I check the screen and see that it's Mom. Oh God, she must know what's been going on. How am I going to explain this shit to her? Swiping my thumb across the screen, I say in a high-pitched, would-be casual voice, "Heeeeeey Mom. What's up?"
"Alex? Oh, thank God-"
No, don't, I think. You're giving him too much credit, and he's already getting too much as it is.
"You were at that theater when that...when that...don't tell me you were involved and that's why you haven't...you should've called me!"
"Mom, I'm fine. AK's fine too. We didn't get hurt, but we're, uh..." I debate whether or not I should tell her where we are, though she can probably look up my phone on GPS anyway. Something I'm now extra-paranoid about, though at least I'd trust her more with that sort of technological access than, say, Peppermint or Scoville.
"That's not the only problem!" Mom cries. "Alex, haven't you been watching the news?"
I glance up at the TV across the room, and AK, as if on cue, reaches for the remote. Josh, Firdaus, and Ahmad clamor for him to stop, but too late - he turns the TV on, and within seconds, we see some breaking news. Not about the near-derailment down in the BART tunnels or anything, but about a flood in San Jose.
Josh hangs his head, while I stand up and stare at the screen in horror.
That's not just any part of San Jose I'm seeing. From this news copter, even with floodwaters covering most of the place, I can still see the screens of the drive-in theater near Luca's place off to one side. And if the drive-in's flooded, as is everything to the east as far as the camera shows...
"No." It comes out in a small voice.
"Yeah," Mom says. "Check on him too. Be a good friend."
"Mom, do you have any idea the shit I've gotten into today? Don't tell me I'm not a good friend!"
"Don't be rude to me!"
"Mom-" I grip my phone tightly, like I want to throw it through the wall. "Mom, one crisis at a time, okay? Let me call Luca, okay?"
"Who says you can even call him?"
"I'll find a way. I'll find something. Just...let me call him, okay?"
"And then you call me back," Mom insists. "Tell me what's happening with you. I hate not knowing."
"Yeah, I'm sorry, I..." I let my voice trail off, then blurt out a quick "Bye!" before hanging up on her and calling Luca. "Come on, dude, pick the fuck up..." Several rings go by and nothing. I cut the unanswered connection and send him a text. Then two, then three, then many more.
What if Mom's right? What if Luca's unreachable? The flood could've taken out all the cell towers, all the internet...hell, all the power. This close to Christmas, even in one of the warmest parts of the Bay Area, it could get pretty freezing. Even if his house isn't flooded, it could wind up barely habitable, if not completely not.
Merry fucking Christmas. Sincerely, Poseidon. (Actually, no, strike that. Even the Greek gods wouldn't be this assholeish.)
Unsure how much longer I can keep waiting, I turn to the door and approach it, but Josh calls me back. "What can you do?" he asks. "Fly down there and airlift your buddy out? Not in this weather, am I right?" Punctuating his words is another lightning strike way out over some other downtown high-rise.
"What do you expect me to do?" I ask, struggling not to scream at him, or anyone else. Especially AK, who's looking like he wants to reach out and grab my wrist so he can keep me in place, more than anyone else in this room, for some reason. Even Josh. "I got other friends besides you guys, and they're in trouble, and they need me!"
"You can't be there for everyone." Firdaus takes my hand for a moment. "Don't overextend yourself. We got your back, so you can stay with us."
"I..." Well, it's hard to argue with a point so good.
"Listen," Josh says after a flash of thought. "My dad's off doing his own thing, so maybe we got a lot of time to kill. Let's go help your friend, huh?"
"What, you're changing your mind?" Ahmad scoffs. "Come on, man, don't be like your dad, all wafflin' and shit-"
"I'm not," Josh says firmly. "I just didn't wanna go into this without a plan."
I step away from the door, wanting to collapse on the nearest chair despite the urgency of the situation. Wanting to sit there with my head in my hands until my brain stops racing a mile a minute with anxiety.
"We're not supposed to leave, right?" AK asks.
I look up in time to see Josh crack a silly smile. "True, but just 'cause I'm part of the Holy Trinity in certain religious traditions doesn't mean I'm a totally rule-abiding goody-two-shoes." He lifts his foot so his ankle rests on the back of the chair. "Hell, just look at how sodden these things got walking out there today!"
"You're dripping on the upholstery," Firdaus says dryly.
"Oh. Sorry."
I bite my tongue for a second as I look over the thin brown streaks trailing down the couch's ice-white backside. They're even getting stuck in the raised leaflike pattern in the upholstery. "Your dad's gonna take the cleaning bill out of your-"
"Not my hands, right?" Josh holds his up, showing off his stigmata again. "Or my feet?"
"I was gonna say your ass."
Josh snorts. "So I can have another hole to get fucked in? No thanks."
Ahmad and Firdaus don't react much, if at all, but AK and I wince at the sound of Josh cussing. I suppose we'll both have to get used to it, though, the idea of a foul-mouthed Jesus.
"Wait..." I hold up one finger way out in front of my face. "Hold up. I just realized only AK and I can fly."
Josh crosses over to his bedside and reaches into a messenger bag, then pulls out a set of keys, which he twirls on his finger. "Who says we can't fly?"
"You have...?" I scratch my head. "What, do you got a chopper?"
"A private jet?" AK asks. "Your dad seems like the type."
"He does, but...no." Josh twirls the keys some more, then stops, allowing the rest of us to glimpse the logo. "I mean, has Ford started making private jets lately?"
"What model?" I ask. "Not a Mustang?" My smile expands, but only for a moment. "Dammit, we can't all fit in a Mustang."
"Not comfortably," Firdaus says. "But that's not Josh's ride. He's got an Escape."
"How perfectly apt," AK deadpans.
Ahmad snickers. "For what, just in general getting away from his dad? Instead of submitting to him?" He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I've said it before, but for the new guys' benefit, I'll say it again. Mr. G is not my Allah."
"He used to be, I think, but not anymore." Josh pockets the keys and leads us out into the hallway. "He's lost his own plot lately, and while Michael and I thought having one of us by his side would help, it's not doing jack shit." He presses the elevator button in an insistent rhythm. "Him and his endless omniscient machinations. Mike and I are nowhere near omniscient enough, even combined."
"Who now?" asks AK.
I look up at the floor counter on the upper wall of the elevator after we get in. Eight. It won't take long to get down to the parking garage, though. I noticed when we came in that this elevator was pretty fast, and that was going up. Unless my limited physics knowledge fails me (seriously, I have to pay more attention in school if I'm ever going to be as smart as Peter Parker), we'd go down even more rapidly because we wouldn't have to fight gravity.
"Isn't he..." I bite my lip, but I don't have to keep on talking anyway. It's hard for me to forget that one blond dude from the Third 'Verse, the one who tried to attack me and Gabe after we wound up there.
Josh shakes his head as he sees my mental image and hears the chugging of that distressed train of thought. "Mike tried to...no, really? I swear, he's not a bad guy! Not like my dad is. No, he was probably just fucking with you. Not that he would, uh, actually fuck with you. He doesn't like sex, even less than I do. And I speak from experience."
AK gasps. "Jesus isn't a virgin? Dan Brown actually got something right?"
"You read that book too?" Josh cringes, then jumps a bit when the elevator dings and the door opens. Less than ten seconds of travel to descend twelve stories.
"Dude, everyone and their mother's read that book for almost two decades now," Ahmad comments. "Especially on Earth. Da Vinci Code made, like, almost a billion bucks back home."
"Not in this dimension, it didn't," I say.
"No, I never got to have kids," Josh says. "But what Dan Brown got right, accidentally of course, is that I hooked up with Mary Magdalene. She really got me, you know?" He whistles softly as he recalls a memory which I'm very reluctant to witness, but his recollection isn't as explicit as I expect. A couple of seconds of heavy breathing sound effects emerging from darkness, that's it. It reminds me a bit of me when I slept with Juliet. Or, heck, even Kelly, even though we've only hit triples yet. Ugh, and I just used that stupid baseball metaphor like the male tool I am. Kill me now.
Speaking of Kelly, when was the last time I talked to her? Last night, I know, but it feels like forever already. I want to call her. Not just text her or even Snap her - and hell, I'm forever going to associate that with virtual sex now. Even though we probably won't do it again because I'm now too scared of what Peppermint or any other bad actors could do with those Snaps. But I want to call her and ask her if she's fine, even though there's nothing majorly disastrous going on in Hell as far as I know. But that could always change, especially if Mr. G decides to leak certain sensitive information to Mr. S.
Carefully, Ahmad drives us out of the city. Even though this is technically Mr. G's ride, and Josh is the one who's supposed to have access to it, Firdaus and the guys agree that Ahmad is the best driver among them by far. "Too many stimulants in my system sometimes," he admits, "but they have their uses." Which he proves by expertly steering the small SUV through the relatively narrow space between a line of traffic and a line of people braving the drizzly chill to line up outside the Metreon the big IMAX blockbuster spectacle du jour.
Middle fingers fly at us almost the whole way, but Ahmad doesn't care. Neither does Josh, who assures us, "I've gotten worse. Usually from Romans. History books never really capture the level of dickery the Romans were capable of."
I cock my head. "You know my best friend is Roman, right?"
"He's probably not gonna care that much, is he? Unless he's descended directly from Caesar or something?"
I consider mentioning the number of times Luca's pretended to be offended at any fictional screw-ups with depictions of Italian culture. It's so many that at this point, I just take it for granted he's pissed for real and hiding it behind jokes like he usually does. "No, if there's one thing Luca's got none of, it's royal blood."
"Or imperial?" AK suggests.
"He's not wrong," Firdaus says. "Wouldn't there be a distinction between royal and imperial?"
"Please, please, don't draw me into a semantics fight-"
"Hold on!" Ahmad barks from the driver's seat. I turn around almost quickly enough to give myself whiplash, expecting to see some black SUV chasing us with a full complement of Special Forces ready to blow our asses to kingdom come. But no, he's just taking us around a corner and past a crew blocking about half the next road. Working a power box in this weather? Good thing they're wearing what look like nuclear bunny suits-
Wait a minute. Really, since when do PG&E teams work electrical in the rain?
"Uh, Ahmad..." I lean forward, bumping into Firdaus a bit as I do. Muttering a hasty apology to her, I continue, "Ahmad, I-I think we might, uh, we might have some company soon."
"What makes you say that?"
AK and Firdaus both turn around, and the former gasps. "That's...not a welding torch-"
"They're Scoville!" Firdaus cries. "I saw the logo!"
"You sure?" asks Josh.
"The same one from that truck!" I pound the back of Ahmad's headrest. "Dude, step on it!"
"Relax, relax," he says after a brief adjustment of his side mirror. "They're not coming after us."
"You sure?" Josh asks again. He glances into the mirror and sighs with relief. "They're still pretending to be PG&E, but they're not whipping out a rocket launcher or anything."
Ahmad speeds through a stale yellow light. "They probably expect your dad to be driving this car."
"Or maybe they've just got Scoville-made suits?" AK asks. "They're probably totally innocent in all this. Not everyone's out to get us, right?"
"Yeah..." I sink back into my seat, hoping against hope that I can relax just a little longer. At least until we get to San Jose and find out what's the deal with Luca and his family. Which might be quite some time given how bad the traffic is in the city alone.