“Thank you,” says Swanny, though of course she doesn’t need his permission. Her lids are hardly down before she begins to dream.
Swanny dreams that the limo drives out of the dead city, north, into timberlands. A black forest, where yellow eyes glow in the sylvan gloom. It’s as though they’re driving into midnight, the hour when one day becomes another and everything changes. Werebeasts roam this country. Their new selves rip them apart from the inside and transform them into something terrible and unrecognizable and strong. Swanny knows, because the moonless wood is morphing her too, and the feeling fills every crook of her body like a profound knowledge, a knowledge that is beyond fear. Her muscles ache. She yearns to roam, to hunt, to sink her teeth into flesh, to howl at the uninhabited sky. She is hungry for vengeance.
In Swanny’s dream, the limo rolls to a stop in a clearing. All around, the branches reach their fingers toward the car windows. Then Sharkey presses the button on a remote control, and the ground itself begins to crack, crack and split apart, until the car is on a narrow shelf of earth that lowers into the ground like an elevator. As they descend, Swanny watches the soil turn to rock, and the rock to lava. At the heart of the planet, people are made of magma, dissolving and consuming one another constantly. It is a sea of fire, and seas are full of life. The car door opens and they carry her into Torchtown.
18
FACE TO THE NAME
INT. RIPPLE MANSION—DAY.
DUNCAN RIPPLE (age 16) and HUMPHREY argue in front of the Concentration Station in the third-floor library. From the outside, the soundproof study pod resembles a sensory deprivation chamber. DUNCAN apparently doesn’t want to go inside.
DUNCAN
It’s about self-respect. You say you want me to learn stuff, but I already know how to read. The world isn’t just a bunch of books. The world is on fire. And the real men are trying to stop it. That’s why you need to let my exemption expire. I want to learn to be a man.
HUMPHREY
Your uncle and I are men too, but that doesn’t mean we needlessly endanger ourselves.
OSMOND (O.S.)
Not anymore!
DUNCAN
I’m not like you, though.
HUMPHREY
Oh, you’re not?
DUNCAN
You’re always saying I’m so stupid—
HUMPHREY
Underachieving. (directly to camera) I never called him stupid.
DUNCAN
But maybe I’m stupid for a reason. Did you ever think of that, huh? Maybe it’s because I’m chosen. And whatever I’m chosen for (he gestures at the Concentration Station), I’m pretty sure it’s not in there.
* * *
Ripple is good at video games. He always has been. But he never thought that could seriously serve him in any realm outside the virtual. Fighting the fire is like the time sinks in Sword Crystal Prophecy III: The Dwarvening, the parts where you have to farm or forge shields or one-hit kill entire armies of clattering skeleton warriors: it’s simple and repetitious but weirdly satisfying, even without a progress bar to mark the time well spent. Insulated inside the Tarnhelm, Ripple blasts a path forward with his hose, plowing into the heat yard by yard, mowing down the field of flames. He literally thought he couldn’t do this, but it turns out he can. Maybe he was onto something without even knowing it, all those times he argued with his dad on the show. Maybe he’s destined for this. He loses track of everything besides the crackling, the sloshing of the water tank on his back, the threat of danger right in front of his face. He writes his name in water, and it rises up to the sky in dank black smoke.
“That was awesome!” Ripple yells, once the roof of the library is puddled and steaming. He strides over to high-five Leather Lungs. “Wooot, we did it!”
Leather Lungs ignores his hand but nods appreciatively. “You did your duty, son. That collar can come off now.”
“Sweet, thanks.” Ripple had forgotten about that ring of electrified steel encircling his larynx; the adrenaline and endorphins have lifted him out of his body almost. “Can we take the masks off too? Is it safe?”
“It is for you,” Leather Lungs says.
Ripple peels back the Tarnhelm; the cooler air feels great on his sweaty skin. He scans the sky for dragons, but there’s nothing there: not a cloud, not a bird. It’s suddenly a beautiful day.
“Ditch the mask, pro! What, are you hiding out from the cops?”
“That would make it tough to work for them, wouldn’t it?” Leather Lungs pulls out a ring of keys and unshackles the claw from around Ripple’s neck. “You’re free to go.”
Ripple rubs his chafed Adam’s apple. “Yeah, but seriously. You’re just going to keep walking around like that?”
No response. They go back inside the building. Leather Lungs pushes the hot-dog cart back into the elevator. He pulls out a weathered logbook, jots down a few quick notes in pencil, then returns it to his slicker pocket. Ripple scrutinizes him.
“Who are you, anyway?” Ripple asks. It’s starting to bug him now. “Special Officer, they said. But Special Officer what? What’s your name? Why did the police department hire an independent contractor anyway?”
“I’m just a man who cares about the fate of this city.”
“But you work alone, wear a mask…and your identity is secret?”
“That’s right.”
“Whoa.” Ripple heard about pros like this—vigilantes, superheroes—but up till now, he never totally believed in them. Like the dragons, they don’t seem really real until you see one up close.
Leather Lungs loads the tank-backpacks into the hot-dog cart. “You did a fine job out there today. I’m sorry the fire department shut down before you had a chance to join. With a little training you could have been one of the greats.”
“For real?”
“Too bad those days are gone.”
Gone. Could have been. The words make Ripple think of Kelvin’s: Empire Island is over. Everybody’s so quick to bail on this place, but it’s Ripple’s kingdom. It’s where he was born, where he grew up, where his family owns a buttload of real estate. And now it’s down to just this guy trying to keep it in one piece. Fuck that. It’s not too late. “Maybe you could train me.”
It’s hard to tell through the gas mask, but Leather Lungs seems doubtful.
“You could be my personal trainer,” Ripple goes on. He’s liking the idea more and more as he explains it out loud. “My coach. You could teach me what you know, and I could join you.”
“It isn’t something to enter into lightly,” says Leather Lungs.
“But you said I kicked ass out there.”
“I said you had potential.”
“I always knew I’d be good at this,” Ripple says brashly. “I’m fearless.”
“Are you?” Leather Lungs says it like he can see inside Ripple’s head: the four torchies in that hallway, the sound of those alarms.
“Look, you’re the one who needs me,” Ripple says, with more confidence than he feels. “If you were good all on your own, you wouldn’t be conscripting people on the street every time this happens. It’s fate. I’m meant to help you with your mission.”