Peter Clines - Ex-Communication

The knot of fingers unraveled and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said. “I was there. We tried—I tried to stop them, to save both of you and my soldiers. I … I’m very sorry for your loss.”

A lone tear raced across her cheek. Her chest heaved. With her eyes closed, she almost looked alive. After a few moments she wiped her face with her arm and opened her chalk eyes to look at him. “Does Dad know?”

Freedom paused again, then nodded. “He did. I’m afraid he died last summer, while we were evacuating Project Krypton.”

Madelyn shrank a little more in her chair.

“Your father loved you both very much,” said Freedom. “In all the years I knew him, I don’t think we had more than a dozen conversations where you didn’t come up. Losing the two of you was a huge blow to him.”

She sobbed for a few minutes, but there were no more tears. Freedom’s chair creaked again as he turned to look back at St. George and Stealth. The cloaked woman nodded once.

“I knew with all the stuff going on …” Madelyn stopped to blow her nose. “I knew they were probably gone, once I realized how long it had been. I just … I hoped.” She sniffed again and wiped her dry face with the back of her hand.

Freedom let her sit for another minute. “May I ask you a few more questions?”

“Sure,” she said. She sniffed hard and her voice got strong again. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just need to be sure.”

“I get it,” said Madelyn. “Ask away.”

“What was your sister’s name?”

“I don’t have a sister. Or a brother.”

“Do you remember the names of any of the other soldiers who picked you up at the airport?”

“I don’t, sorry. I just remember Sergeant Washington because I thought of the president, and then she said her name was Britney.”

He nodded. “So how’d you end up here? Why not Phoenix or Las Vegas or someplace closer to where you … closer to Krypton?”

“You can say where I died. I’ve gotten used to the idea.”

“Okay. So why here, ma’am?”

“And please stop calling me ma’am. You make it seem like I’m some ninety-year-old dowager or something.”

“I can make do with Madelyn,” he said. “So why here?”

“I saw fireworks.”

“What?”

She sighed. “Could I get my bag back?”

Stealth nodded to St. George. The hero stepped outside and a moment later he carried in the dusty duffel bag. It was unzipped and some clothes hung out of it. Madelyn pulled a battered book from one of the side pouches. She flipped through the pages, then handed the open book to Captain Freedom.

July 1st4th, 2011

Dear Diary,

There were fireworksout to the west! West and south.

They must’ve been huge for me to see them from out here.

“That was almost nine months ago,” he said. “It took you nine months to get here?”

“Sort of,” she said. She tapped her head with her fingertips. “I have trouble remembering things since this happened to me. If I don’t write stuff down, it’s like it didn’t happen. There may have been a couple days I was backtracking and didn’t know it.”

“Nine months, though?”

“Maybe a lot of days.” She looked him in the eye. “I know it’s been almost three years since this happened. I can see it written out in my journal. But it feels like it was a couple of weeks ago.”

St. George spoke up. “Is that what all the watches are for?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I kept forgetting days, so I thought the watch was broken, so I got another one. Then I thought maybe they were both broken. But three saying the same thing have to be telling you the right date and time.” She closed the journal and pulled it into her lap. “Are you sure there’s no chance Mom or Dad survived? I mean, maybe they’re like me or something.”

Freedom set one hand on top of the other. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“You’re sure?”

“In your father’s case … no. I’m sorry to say there’s no way he could’ve come back.” The huge officer paused for a moment. “Your mother’s body was never found. We’d assumed she reanimated and walked away, or she’d been … damaged to such an extent that her body was destroyed.”

Madelyn stared at him for a long minute. She didn’t blink. It occurred to Freedom that she didn’t need to. Then she lowered her eyes and sighed.

He gave her another moment. “Why did you try to hide your … condition from us?”

She looked down at the straps. “Not counting the chair, you guys have been great, but not everyone’s so chivalrous to a seventeen-year-old girl on her own.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Some of them thought me being dead made it okay to do things to me.”

The captain’s face hardened. “Did anyone … Were you assaulted in any way?”

Madelyn shook her head, then shrugged. “Not like that, no. I got groped a couple times, but that’s it. Some people stole my stuff. I lost my shoes once. Most of them got freaked out by me being dead and still, y’know, smart. I could get away without too much trouble.”

“And the pistol? Where’d you get it?”

“I found it in a car, under the seat. It was empty, but there was a box of ammunition in the glove compartment.”

“Your father taught you how to shoot, correct?”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “Dad and Mom hate guns.” Her face fell. “Hated guns. It was pretty easy to figure out, though. There wasn’t a clip or anything, just the … Are you still testing me?”

“Yes,” Freedom said, “and it’s called a magazine, not a clip.” He turned his head back to Stealth again and nodded.

Stealth stepped forward. “We are prepared to accept you are who you claim,” she said. “You are not Legion.”

“Cool,” said Madelyn.

The cloaked woman turned to St. George. “However,” she said, “this poses a question. How is she not Legion?”

“Maybe because she’s conscious,” St. George suggested. “His powers may need the … the space of an empty mind.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t count as a regular ex,” said Freedom. “Some tweak to the virus or something similar. If Legion’s possession ability is very narrow-ranged, she might fall outside its parameters.”

“According to everything we know,” said Stealth, “the virus never mutates.”

Madelyn tapped her fingers on the tabletop. The rhythm was from a song, something popular before the outbreak, but Freedom couldn’t place it. “So,” she said, “what happens now?”

St. George cleared his throat. “If you’re up for it, I think the doctors want to run some tests on you and try to figure out why you are … well, the way you are.”

“What does that mean?”

“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a doctor.”

“Am I … am I under arrest or anything?”

Freedom straightened up from his chair and shot a look at Stealth. “I don’t think so.”

Madelyn stood up, too, and swayed side to side. She was smaller than all of them. “Can I go out and walk around? It’s been a while since I could just, y’know, walk and not worry about bumping into exes or anything.”

St. George caught the shift in Stealth’s body language. “Maybe we should ease into that,” he said. “Most people probably won’t react well to seeing a dead person inside the walls. Just for now, you shouldn’t go anywhere without an escort.”

“And until we are certain why you are the way you are,” said Stealth, “we should make running tests our main priority.”

Madelyn’s face dropped. “Yeah,” she said, “I could see that.” She looked at St. George. “Where am I going to stay until then?”