George Martin - Busted flush

God, I hate government facilities. Why on earth would anyone build anything in an abandoned salt mine? And in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, to boot…

"The purpose of the test is to see how much force you can absorb, Miss Pond." The disembodied voice belonged to Dr. Pendergast. His voice was normally silky smooth, so it was hard to tell when he was really pissed. But there was a hint of anger and I knew I'd been bad.

But, really, how many more times could they pound the living crap out of me? I was beginning to feel like Wile E. Coyote. Drop me down into that canyon one more time, boss. Or shoot me with a death ray. Your choice.

I wasn't even certain what they were testing me for anymore. At first, it was the usual: some joker with a face that could stop a clock and biceps the size of watermelons. He gave me a left hook that I kinda felt. I tried not to laugh at the look of disappointment on his unfortunate face.

Then they started with the cannonballs, bullets, walls on springs. Honestly, who the hell has walls on springs, just, you know, lying around? I mean, did none of these guys watch American Hero? You'd've thought they'd never heard of the Amazing Bubbles.

But the superweird thing was that they didn't want me to bubble. In fact, Dr. Pendergast made it very clear that he didn't want any bubbling. I tried to explain to him that when I got hit with as much raw energy as they were throwing at me, I had to bubble. It hurt not to.

But Dr. Pendergast didn't care about that. He was only interested in how much power I could absorb. They'd already found out my max size would just about fill an eight-by-eight room. But I was no Bloat. They told me that when I stopped growing in size I started getting denser. Heavier, but no larger. I kinda got the feeling this was very interesting to them.

The problem was, after they got me as fat as I could get, and they kept throwing more and more force at me, I was finding it more difficult to bubble it off after the tests. The denser I got, the more powerful I became, but the harder it was to access my power. Hell, I could barely lift one of my pudgy fingers.

And it didn't help that every time I got hit, it brought back memories. Memories that I didn't want to face. So I did what I usually do-I thought about something else. Thought about anything that would distract me from what was rattling around my head like a bad Rob Zombie movie.

Thinking about Ink naked usually did the trick.

"Okay, Miss Pond, we'll go again."

"Yeah? I don't think so," I replied. I flung my hands out and released an enormous stream of bubbles, and I could feel my clothes getting looser. I grabbed a handful of waistband with my left hand to keep my pants from falling off.

The bubbles bounced around the room, but I kept bubbling with my right hand. As I filled the room, the bubbles just sort of vibrated against one another. I'd made them soft and rubbery so they wouldn't hurt anyone. But it would take a while for them to dissipate. The room would be useless for any more games of Kick the Bubbles. At least for a while.

"Miss Pond, you agreed to be tested."

"I know, and now I'm done with testing. I don't recall this being anything other than voluntary on my part."

"You're acting like a child. We have only just begun to discover the true range of your power."

I glared at the one-way mirror. I couldn't see Dr. Pendergast, but I could imagine the patronizing look on his face. That and how he would stroke his Vandyke when he was trying to "reason" with you.

"Yeah, well…" Crap, I always sucked at pithy-line moments. "You're not the boss of me." I marched out with my pants hitched up, trying not to smack myself on the forehead.

There was a knock on my door. They were lodging me in one of the officers' quarters. I suspected the hoi polloi got far less kind treatment.

I pulled the door open. One of the homeliest women I'd ever seen was standing there. Her hair was cropped short like she'd cut it with safety scissors. And her cheeks and forehead were acne-scarred, with an angry red breakout in full bloom. "Miss Pond?"

"That's me," I said.

"I'm Niobe." She paused.

"Niobe!" I pulled her to me in a bear hug. We'd been corresponding via e-mail since American Hero. She had really touched me, as many of her e-mails had been heartbreaking. Her parents had been less than supportive when her card turned, which was like saying Joker Plague had some unattractive members. But there had been something else in her e-mails, something unspoken.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Not everyone gets an all-expense-paid vacation at the lovely BICC."

"Well, my parents weren't too pleased that their only daughter wasn't going to have the perfect coming-out party. It's hard being a debutante with this." Her thick tail swished on the floor. I hadn't noticed it before. It was an ugly gray, thick and mottled, and there were stiff bristles sticking out of it.

I turned and started putting the rest of my things into my suitcase. She looked so forlorn it made me uncomfortable.

"They're studying me," she said, "just like they were studying you."

"God, I hope not," I replied, looking over my shoulder. "They've been pounding the crap outta me."

She gave me a wan smile. "No," she said. "I don't have a power like yours. You know, you're prettier in person."

I laughed. "Whoa, Non Sequitur Girl, er, Woman."

"I mean, I guess you're different than you looked on TV."

"You mean I'm not as fat now." I shoved the last of my clothes into my bag. "Yeah, I just bubbled the hell outta the test room. I'm leaving, and I don't want to be as recognizable when I head back to New York."

She shoved her hands into her pockets and looked unhappy. "I guess this means you're not going to spend any time with the other patients."

"I didn't know anyone wanted to see me," I said. "They've pretty much kept me in the dark about everything except for the whole, 'Let's see what we can throw at Bubbles this time.' "

Niobe looked even more morose at this. "Yeah," she said. "They treat us like rats in a cage."

"Look," I said. "I've got plenty of time before my flight-if they even have enough fuel to get off the runway today. Why don't I come and meet whomever you want me to meet?"

"You'd do that?" My God, her eyes were so sad.

"Sure, let me grab my things."

"Is it cool being a part of the Committee?" Niobe asked as we sped along the silent corridor in a BICC golf cart.

"I guess," I said. "I mean, it's great being a part of something that's supposed to be doing good, but sometimes… sometimes it's hard."

There was a faint whiff of burning flesh. I glanced around, but there was nothing but smooth, unblemished wall flashing by.

"But you get to do a lot of other cool things, too."

"True. I got to go to the Academy Awards and the VMAs, and they had a parade for us at Disneyland after that mess in Egypt. So that was okay. But doing press junkets, not so great."

The cart slowed as Niobe lifted her foot from the pedal and looked at me. "But isn't it fun having them ask you questions and then they actually pay attention to you?"

"Yeah… not so much," I replied. "When we got back from Egypt they sent us out on a goodwill tour. It was pretty hellish. Not because of the people who wanted to meet us-they were almost always cool." Except for the woman who threw pig's blood on me and called me a murderer, I thought. "But that press stuff is less than thrilling. Trust me, no fun at all."

We sped up. "Oh," Niobe said. "I just thought that after American Hero and being on the Committee that your life would be, you know, perfect."

"I don't think life's ever perfect."

"It was pretty perfect when Tiffani got knocked off AH." She gave me a sly smile.

I smiled back. "Yeah, that was kinda perfect."