Every Day is Like Doomsday (28 page)

Elliot froze, the deadbolt on the back door of his
dad’s house picked but the knob as yet unturned. The
hostility in Innya’s voice cut through his heavy coat and
chilled him more completely than the winter air. He
turned around slowly.

Innya could have been his twin. She wore all black
skinny jeans and a black hoodie with her blonde hair tucked
neatly away so that it wouldn’t catch the moonlight. The
strap from her black duffel bag of supplies crossed her chest
right between her breasts,pulling his attention downward.
She was stunning and Elliot had to steel himself against
the urge to close the distance between them and crush her
lips with his. He balled his hands into fists and reminded
himself that they were enemies now.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought
you had washed your hands of me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,
mudak
. I’m merely following
up on a hunch. What are you doing here?”
“Following a lead of my own. My dad’s in trouble.
I’m going to help him.” Elliot lifted his chin, fully expecting to be cut down, and Innya didn’t disappoint.
Innya laughed. “You’re so blinded by the mere idea
of fatherly love that you can’t see the truth when it’s right
in front of you.”
Elliot scowled. “You’re not coming into this house.”
“Try to stop me.”
They glared at one another and precious seconds
ticked by. The back deck of Elliot’s dad’s house was relatively out in the open. Even though no one was home
and Elliot had already ventured into the bushes to cut
the power to the security cameras this still wasn’t the best
place for them to have a battle of wills. Elliot was angry
with her for leaving him bleeding on the ground but
Innya’s face was an unreadable mask colored only slightly
by disdain. She wasn’t going to back down.
Elliot sighed and muttered, “Do you want to do
this inside?”
“Fine,” came the response. Innya’s voice was strung
with icicles that pricked Elliot all the way down to his soul.
Elliot faced the door,turned the knob and let them in.
“I can’t believe he doesn’t have a better security system,”mumbled Innya as she followed Elliot into the house.
“Then again I suppose he wouldn’t need one, considering
he’s a
bad guy.
If I had to guess I’d say he’s a megalomaniac
and so doesn’t think anyone would dare to fuck with him.”
Elliot snorted.“There are cameras but I cut the power
before I came up to the porch. I’m not an idiot.” Innya
cocked an eyebrow in what he assumed was pleased surprise
and that gave Elliot the impetus to add, “We need to talk.”
“Oh, really?”
Innya set down her duffel bag and folded her arms
over her chest, which made Elliot think of her chest
again. He shook his head, gestured to himself and said,
“We both know I’m not a Villain. I’m not like you.”
“Glad you finally see the light.”
“But I’m not like them, either. I’m no longer a
Norm. I have no place in this world anymore. And part of
that is because of you.” Elliot dared her to disagree with
his eyes. What he was doing now wasn’t part of some
mock-Villain persona she’d created for him, but a part of
himself she’d helped him to recognize and he hoped she’d
lose the attitude long enough to see it.
“Don’t blame me for protecting you. Blame the Dean
for asking me to. Or better yet, blame yourself for helping
those morons with their makeshift bomb in the first place.
This is all happening to you because you are a stupid
sraka
.”
“I know, I know!” Elliot growled, frustrated that she
just wasn’t getting it. “This isn’t coming out right.”
“So make it come out right.”
“You were right about Craig. He’s a Villain and he’s
the one who wanted me dead. And now I think that my
dad is in danger.”
Innya shook her head, seemingly confused, but then
one corner of her mouth twisted into a sardonic smile.
“You’re right. Craig is a Villain. How’d you find out?”
“I went into town…”
“Did you scare any young children? Because you
really do look like hell.”
“Thanks. And, no.”
“Did any adults run and scream for cover? Sometimes that’s even more fun.”
“No. I kept my hood up, but listen to me…” he took
a deep breath and then said, “I ran into Craig trying to
shake down one of the local shop owners for $10,000.”
“Really?” Innya laughed, “That sounds
way
too
small time for your father.”
“I told you,”said Elliot,“It’s not my father. It’s Craig.”
“Whatever. So what was the money for?”
“For protection against me. Or rather, against the
Zombie.”
Innya’s smile widened. “No shit.”
“Yes shit, and stop smiling like that. This is a bad
thing. He’s using our little spree to steal from people in
the name of protection. He’s like… he’s like the mob.”
“A lot of people do that. Like the mob, for instance.”
“I also overhead him talking to someone named
Muddy.”
“What a disgusting moniker. How’d you manage
that, Colombo?”
“He was on speakerphone and standing on the corner.”
“Such a cliché. Seriously, what an amateur.”
Elliot smiled.“I thought the same thing. But they’re
planning a world takeover.This Muddy person mentioned
that they’ve already got several European cities ready to
fall and they’re working on the rest.”
Rage flushed Innya’s pale cheeks. “World takeover?
Now they’re stepping on my toes.”
Elliot looked up at her and scowled. “Oh please,”
he said, allowing a smidge of his Villain persona to rise to
the surface, “You’re not even on the dance floor yet.”
Without warning Innya walked up to him, grasped
a handful of his hair and yanked his head toward hers.
His good eye popped open in surprise and the other one
struggled to catch up. “Nice put-down. You’re lucky I’m
in a forgiving mood,” she said, and then she kissed him
hard until he groaned in pain against her mouth.
When she released him she ran her tongue over her
teeth, grinned into Elliot’s face and said something he
never thought he’d hear her say.
“Let’s save the world.”
As they moved further into the house Elliot shook
off his surprise at the sudden make-up kiss. He wondered
if make-up sex would be just as painful and decided that
given the current state of his body it would probably hurt
more. For the first time in his life he was grateful that sex
wasn’t going to happen.
They didn’t bother to turn on any lights. With all
the uncovered windows and the snow and the moon they
could see fairly well. Elliot turned to the left to face a
closed, glass-inlaid door and said,“This is my dad’s office.”
“The inner-sanctum of your evil father?” Innya
asked with a smile.
Elliot grit his teeth and asked, “Why do you keep
saying that?”
“Nevermind.” She pulled a dark green towel from
her bag, wrapped it around her right fist and prepared to
punch out one of the glass panes when Elliot stopped her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m breaking and entering. This part is the breaking. Then we can do the entering.”
“But then he’ll know we’ve been here.”
“After we go through everything he’ll know we’ve
been here anyway. Besides, he’s treated you like shit. He
deserves to have something broken.”
Elliot shrugged and let her break the glass but he still
winced when he heard it shatter. It didn’t matter anymore
but old habits were tough to kill. Innya unlocked the door
through the open pane and then Elliot was in his dad’s
office, without permission, for the first time in his life.
He inhaled sharply and with the scent of his dad’s
cologne, some Italian brand Elliot could never pronounce, and dusty books, memories came flooding back.
He thought of all the times his dad had kicked him out
of this room, of all the times his dad had missed doing
something important with him and blamed work for his
absence. In an instant he relived all of the times his father
had disappointed him and suddenly found himself fighting the impulse to destroy everything in this office for
daring to come first.
“Where do you think he keeps his top secret stuff ?”
Innya asked and Elliot jumped. He watched her run her
fingers over the books in the bookcase, leather-bound
classics, books of law and history, and tap on those that
looked as if they might be hollow. Elliot knew that none
of them were but he wasn’t quite sure of his voice.
When he didn’t answer immediately, Innya glanced
at him and sighed. She placed her hands on his shoulders
and patted them awkwardly, as if trying to console him.
“Obviously you’re angrier at your dad than you thought.”
“Am not,” spat Elliot.
“Really? Then here,” she said, handing him a heavy,
round glass paperweight with a miniature American flag
frozen mid-wave inside. “Break this.”
Elliot heard himself saying, “I can’t do that,” even
as he snatched the paperweight out of her hand and
chucked it as hard as he could at the wooden door-casing.
The bauble exploded upon impact, spraying them both
with shards of tempered glass.
They stared silently at the mess. Elliot couldn’t
believe what he had just done. Stranger still, it had helped
the anger shrink to a more manageable size.
“Better?” asked Innya.
“Yes, thank you,” said Elliot hoarsely. “
“Good. Now back to work.”
“We should hurry.”
“That’s the plan. I’m going to fire up the computer
and see if there’s anything we can use. You check the desk
drawers. Your daddy has to have some evil lurking here.”
“He’s not a Villain. I’m just looking for Craig’s info
so I can go confront him on his home turf. Besides, even
if my dad were a Villain don’t you think he’d be smarter
than that?”
“You’re forgetting that we know what Villains are
like, or at least I know what Villains are like. On the whole
they aren’t that smart and they love to get caught because
it gives them a chance to brag about their genius ideas.”
“My dad’s not a Villain.”
“Oh really? Then what is this?” asked Innya as she
opened up a folder on the computer that contained several documents involving the VA, how it was founded
and how it was funded. One document named one Senator Vane, a.k.a. The Senator, as the main funding source
and recruiter for the VA.
Elliot glanced at the pages and exhaled one long,
soft, “Holy shit.”
“Thanks to your untimely head injury you may have
forgotten, but I told you what I saw on the screen in the
Strategy classroom and it wasn’t just about Craig. Your
dad is The Senator.”
“Well… He is
a
senator…”
“This alone proves that he’s a Villain, Elliot. In fact,
I think he might even be the king of the Villains.”
Elliot blinked and tried to wrap his mind around
what Innya was saying but his mind had other ideas
entirely. “This might not mean anything. My dad was
always a big proponent of the VA so the fact that he
raised money for them isn’t really surprising.”
“I think it’s kind of cool,” said Innya with reverence.
Elliot shot her a dirty look. “What do you expect? This is
my dream! To have money and power and people doing
whatever I command. To be the queen of the Villains.
Hey, can I marry your dad?”
Elliot’s expression soured even further and he felt
a sharp pang in his heart at the thought of losing Innya
to his dad.
Innya laughed,“I’m only joking,”she said then,her face
growing serious once more, “When I rule I will rule alone.”
“This drawer is locked,” said Elliot, rattling the bottom left hand drawer of his dad’s desk. He quickly tried
some of the others and spent precious moments rifling
through note pads of every size, shape and color, multiple pens, pencils, random office stuff. “None of these are
locked. But this one is.”
“Well, genius,” said Innya, “I think that might be
the one with the important stuff.”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
“It’s a habit. Pick it.”
Elliot pulled out his lock picking kit and made
short work of the cheap drawer lock. “Got it,” he said.
“Impressive,”Innya said without looking away from
Senator Vane’s computer files, which were coming up
with some very interesting stuff judging by her occasional
exclamations of “No way!” and “Ooooh”.
“Did you know that your father has several foreign
bank accounts under the names Roger Green, David
Black, Aaron White, and Benjamin Gray?” she suddenly
asked. “It looks like there are others, too, all with colors
as last names. He must have been looking at a box of
Crayola crayons when he created these. They’re not very
original. It’s kind of disappointing.”
“Foreign bank accounts? That sounds so Hollywood.”
Innya whistled. “Okay, disappointment fading. He
is
very
well off.”
Elliot ignored the desire tingeing Innya’s voice but he
couldn’t ignore the niggling fact there was only one way that
a Senator could have that much money floating around,
and it couldn’t have been on the up-and-up. His carefully
constructed view of his father started to crumble. If all of
this was real then Innya was right. His dad was a Villain.
Innya started humming ‘We’re in the money’.
“What’s in the drawer?”
Elliot took out several colored folders containing
blank pieces of paper and some pieces of bazooka gum that
were like little pieces of pink, wax-paper-wrapped concrete.
“There’s nothing in here,” he told Innya. “I don’t get it.”
Innya looked down into the now empty drawer and
said, “There’s a false bottom in that drawer.”
“What’s a false bottom?” asked Elliot.
“Feel around the back. There’s probably a little ribbon or a notch in the wood or something.”
Elliot did as she asked and he felt a finger-sized
hole right at the back of the drawer. He pulled slightly
and the entire bottom came up. His hands shook as he
rifled through the drawer and found blank false passports
and VISAs in the names on the foreign bank accounts and
a few others. There were three cell phones in the drawer
but they were all dead and gutless, just like one Elliot had
stolen from Craig. There were some flash drives and discs
but nothing was labeled. He took everything from the
drawer and spread it out on the desk.
“Jackpot,” said Elliot, “I think. We probably won’t
have time to go through all of this stuff.” Innya plugged
in the first flash drive and they started to read.
One file held a simple Excel spreadsheet of Villains, their code names and their powers. It had over four
hundred names on it and as Innya scrolled down one
name caught Elliot’s eye and he made Innya stop and go
back. As she scrolled slowly upwards he found what he
was looking for.
Craig Baker, a.k.a. The Ginger. His power was
listed as manipulating magnetic fields to power electronic
devices and amplify signals.
“Well, that explains that,” said Elliot darkly. He was
about to launch into a tirade of insults at his father when a
name a few spaces above Craig’s caught his eye. “No way.”
“What?”
He read it again just to be sure. There could be no
mistake. He pointed to the name and Innya read it out
loud. “Christine Boucher-Vane. a.k.a. La Reine.” She
turned to him, confused. “Who is this?”
“My mom.”