Chapter 35
I IMMEDIATELY SHUT down the whole quantum-leap experiment and pulled myself together on the mean streets of Moscow.
I couldn’t let these hooligans hurt the defenseless old woman, not if I ever wanted to face myself in the mirror again. For now, I needed to concentrate all my powers in this one location: Red Square.
I also needed my friends.
“What’s up?” said Joe, when he, Willy, Emma, and Dana materialized.
“We need to teach these young Muscovites a thing or two about respecting their elders,” I said as the five of us surrounded the two dozen bad dudes circling the babushka.
“Might be time to call in the heavy artillery,” suggested Willy.
“Yeah,” agreed Dana. “Make these tough guys cry Mayday.”
An excellent suggestion, I thought, since Mayday is the international distress signal, and May Day is also very close to Victory Day in Russia, a holiday when the old Soviet empire used to parade rocket launchers and tanks and goose-stepping troops through this very same square. I skipped the soldiers and concentrated on the big guns.
Twenty-four tanks and twenty-four nuclear-tipped rocket launchers rumbled into the square, one of each aimed directly at each of the twenty-four thugs threatening the defenseless granny. Clanking tank treads and rumbling truck tires crunching across chunks of concrete definitely got the bad boys’ attention. All twenty-four of them twirled around to face us and our newly arrived backup.
“Give it up, guys,” I called out. “You’re seriously outgunned. Let her go.”
“Who are you?” jeered their leader. “Are you with the horseman?”
“No,” said Dana, swaggering forward. “We’re the good guys.”
Now the leader violently grabbed the babushka and wrapped his arm around her throat. “Then call off your tanks!” he snarled. “Pull back your missiles. Or I will kill this old woman! I will kill her now!”
“You don’t want to do that, my friend,” said Willy, stealthily moving forward, ready to pounce the second I gave him the go signal.
“Da! I do!” The gang leader snarled, tightening his viselike grip on the babushka’s throat. “This old woman has lived long enough.” He raised a jagged vodka bottle he held clutched in his right fist. “There is no room for old ones such as her down below. Our new Lord and Master does not need weaklings.”
“Drop the bottle, buddy,” said Willy, both hands up and ready to rock.
The gang leader just laughed. “Or what, little boy? You will take it from me?”
Dana moved forward boldly. “No. I will.”
“Pah! You are a girl!”
“Good eye, Boris Badenov. Now play nice and hand over your bottle. If you do, I’ll give you a binky to suck on instead.”
Dana leaped forward just as I was just about to turn the Russian’s nasty-looking jagged bottle into a floppy, harmless fish.
But the gang leader slashed at Dana’s face with the thing an instant before I made the switch.
Her hands flew up to the bleeding wound.
Thinking fast—finally—I turned the gang of hoodlums, all of whom were reaching for weapons, into Red Square’s newest tableau of frozen bronze statues, something I should’ve done six nanoseconds sooner, but my reflexes were still foggy from the four-location stunt I had just pulled off (not to mention my massive military buildup in Red Square).
“Take care of the babushka,” I called to Emma, who raced over to comfort the elderly woman while the rest of us ran to help Dana.
But Granny didn’t want comforting. “Where two are fighting, third should not interfere!” she hissed at Emma before scuttling off through the logjam of tanks and rocket launchers to join the crowd of Muscovites mauling one another at the entrance to a nearby subway station.
Emma dashed back to see how Dana was doing. Blood was dribbling out of the gash on her cheek.
I felt sick. I’d sworn I’d never let my friends get hurt again—especially Dana.
This was a failure I wasn’t prepared to accept.
Chapter 36
“WHAT’S THE MATTER, Daniel?” Dana said, gritting her teeth to smile through the pain.
“I’m so, so sorry, Dana! I-I don’t know what happened. My response time is lousy right now… my brain must be out to lunch….”
“Chya,” Dana said, chuffing out a nose laugh. “Whatever, Dr. Danny. Can you just focus on fixing up my face?”
“You got it.”
I was able to stanch the blood without lifting a finger.
“She still has a scar,” whispered Emma.
I focused on it, tried to erase it from her face, to imagine it away.
But I couldn’t.
It was still there.
“Um, are you okay, Daniel?” asked Emma. “Maybe you shouldn’t have tried that being-in-four-places-at-the-same-time trick.”
“Or whipped up all the heavy artillery,” added Willy.
“Yeah,” said Joe. “Maybe you left a few of your superpowers back in London or Beijing.”
“Just fix Dana, will you?” blurted Willy.
“I’m trying,” I said, sounding way more defensive than I ever want to sound again.
“You can do it, Danny,” said Joe. “Since Dana’s a product of your imagination, just imagine her looking the way she’s supposed to.”
“Is it bad?” Dana asked, trying to check out her reflection in the lenses of Joe’s glasses.
“Nah,” said Willy. “It’s just a tiny little nick. But, well, I always think of you as being, you know, totally perfect.”
When Willy said that, Dana fluttered her eyelashes. She might’ve even blushed. “You do?”
“Well, yeah,” Willy said very shyly, slightly embarrassed. All of a sudden, I got the funny feeling that some of my more personal opinions about my dream girl had seeped out of my mind and found their way over to my imagined guy friend, because Willy sure sounded like he had a mad crush on Dana, too.
“Well, that’s sweet, Willy,” Dana said, smirking. “But I have news for you: it’s just a little scar. No big deal. I’m still perfect for you, Willy!”
For you. I gulped even though I knew Dana was trying to make me feel jealous about her and Willy the way I had made her feel jealous about Mel and me. Yep, even for Alien Hunters, being a teenager is one big, complicated, boy-girl, he said/she said mess.
“Okay, so if Danny boy’s not working any miracles here, then let’s go grab some cheese blintzes and shish kebab–flavored potato chips,” urged Joe. “Moscow’s famous for ’em—and I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse. Even that gnarly green nag Number 2 was riding.”
That’s when it finally struck me: Xanthos had told me to be on the lookout for strangely colored equestrian creatures….
Know this: a red horse shall be a sign, he had advised, adding that the red horse would be a sign of all that is written, of all that must be.
The red horse had been in New York City, not Moscow.
I had pulled myself together in the wrong location!