Festus Piltdown, on the other hand, slumped against the wall, looking as if he’d just been punched in his soul.
Graffiti from the Ghetto of the Mad
Gathered with us back inside the crime lab, Syndi, flush with relief at her mother’s recovery, divulged all the information she’d received from her rendezvous with Kareem, even revealing the location, since it no longer mattered: the now-abandoned Hermes Theater in Stun-Glas.
“He told me to save myself. Because he said that you, Eva…that you’re either Sarah Bellum, or Menton, or both.”
Grimacing as if swallowing a pill the size and shape of a horseshoe, Syndi was clearly pained to be revealing her intelligence—whether from a wish to protect me or Kareem, I wasn’t sure. The luminous Hnossi and Wally stood flanking her, each with a comforting hand on one of her shoulders.
Festus stared anywhere in the room but at that trinity.
There was a sudden whining buzz about my ears. I batted away the distraction.
André asked, “Why do that nutjob think she Menton or Bellum?”
Syndi shook her head. “Oh…it’s…it’s so sad. It’s crazy. Paranoid. He was all over the place—because Eva’d written all those books on Menton, like she was the Earl of Oxford to Menton’s Shakespeare.”
I found myself startled by Syndi’s reference, still integrating my comprehension that nineteen-year-old celebrity puffhead Syndi was actually thirty-two-year-old intellectual Inga. “Why else, Syndi?”
She carefully laid bare the layers of Kareem’s paranoia, as if opening a set of nested Ukrainian dolls. Apparently, Kareem was accusing me of being Sarah Bellum; he said also that I was originally the minor heroine Right-Brain Girl, rejected for F*O*O*J membership in the early 1970s; that he’d seen photographs of the “real” me standing in front of bookshelves full of Ayn Rand texts; that in the late 1970s I’d “assumed” the identity of Dr. Brain, and as therapist for Tran Chi Hanh had driven a wedge between the Flying Squirrel and Chip Monk, destroying their partnership; that I either had caused Dr. Napoleon Orator to become Menton so I could have the perfect mate, or had “doubled” my mind, placing half of it in Dr. Orator as the first fiefdom of my geopsychic empire; that, imprisoned on Asteroid Zed, I had evolved my phagopsychosis to absorb psinergy from the planetary unconscious itself, eventually enough to wreak murderous revenge on Hawk King; that I had used deceptive, destructive therapeutic techniques to initiate Omnipotent Man’s breakdown; that I had manipulated my F*O*O*J patients into going up to Asteroid Zed where they could be mass-murdered, and, barring that, where a Plan B could initiate the death at least of Iron Lass, which in turn would weaken Syndi and Festus; that I had accessed secret, comprehensive files on X-Man and Syndi, leaking the information to the press to destroy him in a scandal; that by establishing myself as the F*O*O*J’s chief confidant, I had placed myself in the perfect position to gather supreme intelligence on them, exploit their weaknesses, and destroy them one by one—or to manipulate them to my further end of taking over the planet for a never-ending phagopsychotic feeding frenzy on the collective minds of the human race.
When Syndi was done, a cold silence clutched the crime lab like the metallic fingers of Count Speculum.
“It’s tragic,” I said, “that a young man so bright, with so much promise…Ah, well. Now. Given the threat to public safety that Kareem’s psychosis clearly poses, we need to focus on what all of you are going to do.”
“Oh, and there’s one more thing, Eva,” said Syndi, taking out and handing me an ordinary paper note addressed to me. I swatted at the insects whining in my ears before taking the note.
“What’s it say?” demanded Festus and André in unison, rushing me.
I scanned it, and then read aloud:
First, “Doctor Brain,” or whoever you truly are, my final ten-word answer to your recurring question about what I’d do if I could never equal the glory of my predecessors is as follows:
“Pursuing glory is what created this mess. I’ll take justice.”
Second, contrary to your psychobabbling parable intended to “heal” me, I want you to understand that I don’t have two wolves inside me and never did. Just a single black dog with four paws: one of fear, one of hope, one of rage, and one of love.
And he’s a good dog.
Festus snapped, “What kind of Congo-jumbo is that sambo sociopath dithering on about?” André shushed him violently, and remarkably Festus obeyed.
And finally, before the end of this day, I intend to expose the real assassin of Hawk King and explode an even more diabolical conspiracy that would otherwise leave thousands of American citizens dead, thus subjecting the country, if not the planet, to a never-ending war on freedom. And I swear by the Udjat, I will do so by any means necessary.
Dã-f xu, us em maãxeru!
The X-Man
“Y’hear that?” slurred André, still sobering up. “How he gonna…‘explode’ a ‘conspiracy…by any means necessary’? We can’t wait any longer! If we don’put the smackdown on that psycho now, who knows what he gon do? An how many people he gon hurt?”
“Where do y’all think he’s gon strike?” asked Wally. His voice echoed in the Hollow beyond its solitary sonic power. In the shadowy chamber, he, Hnossi, and Syndi seemed to be glowing.
Festus addressed his computer array rather than look toward the golden triangle. He swatted flies away from his ears. His voice was ice.
“Since Edgerton’s attempting to blame the good doctor here for everything wrong in his misbegotten life, clearly he’s going to attack her wherever he thinks she could be—which means her home, the Squirrel Tree, or her Hyper-Potentiality Clinic. Don’t worry, Doct—”
“Now don’tchu worry, lil lady,” said Wally. “We’ll protect ya.”
Festus bit his lower lip, hard, then keyboarded his console like Bach playing his organ. The honeycomb monitors flared, fluttered and flashed with millions of random images, and while we watched, the data flood began channeling into select motifs.
“Good goddamn,” said
