The boy is hurting, but Trank doesn’t care much for the question.
“We’re on a mission,” he says, as gently as he’s able. “Is that pointless?”
But Ripple doesn’t come around the way Trank expects.
“You’re on a mission,” says Ripple. “You want to control the dragons the same way you want to control me. You don’t care about saving anything. All you care about is being in charge.”
Trank stiffens. “I’m a leader, Duncan. I lead. And you’ve got an opportunity to be part of my team. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll step in line.”
Ripple stares at his pizza. He thinks for a long time—longer than Trank’s ever seen him—longer than Trank would have thought possible. When he looks up his jaw is set, defiant. “You know that command console you talked to me about? Well, good luck finding it first. May the best man win.”
Trank knew the boy would challenge him someday, but he never expected this caliber of insolence. What kind of an orphan would push away a father figure? The kind who believes he’s heir to the throne. Trank should have known that Late Capitalism’s Royalty would have its own plan for succession.
“So you want all the power for yourself?” Trank asks. “You really want that responsibility?”
“No way, Hamburger Head. But that doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. Because I’m not like you. I’m not going to use the command console for myself. I’m going to be a hero for real. I’m going to use it to slay the dragons.”
Trank’s lost so many boys over the years, it’s hard to keep track. Toward the end of his service as fire chief, conscriptees would splash themselves with gasoline in protest and run into the fires, and Trank would have to send in more boys, boys to chase the boys who, if they lived at all, would be skinned alive and subject to a court-martial. It hurt and pained and shocked him every time. After the mutiny, Trank finally thought he was past all caring. But now, Ripple’s words have a strange effect on him. It’s as if Ripple has peeled back his rubber face skin, and slowly, deliberately turned every one of his screws.
“You can’t slay the dragons,” Abby murmurs, hushed and fearful. “They won’t let you.”
“Watch me, wench.” Ripple stands up. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Trank asks Ripple.
“Anywhere we want. The city is mine.”
“Not this city.” The MPD hasn’t given Trank much besides a badge, a walkie-talkie, and some nonlethal weapons. But they get the job done. Trank pulls out a TaseMePro? and levels it at the boy.
Ripple snorts. “Uh, I am not afraid of an electric razor.”
Before Trank can depress the Stun button, Abby flies across the table to shield Ripple from the blast. A blue-white beam crackles through the air, into her lithe blond form. She flops to the floor, every muscle twitching and spasming. Her hair statics out—she glows visibly for a second—her eyes dance under their lids, bewitched by rapid nightmares. Then all at once she relaxes into a poisoned princess’s swoon. Her rat leaps down from the table to the floor and beelines for a hole in the wall’s baseboard. Some friend.
Ripple sinks to his knees beside her. “What the snuff did you do? Put that thing down!”
“Not every man can be god of his own history.” Paxton Trank has never had a son, and he never will. But he believes that he will be remembered. One way or the other. The taser’s recharge diode lights up, ready to aim and fire. “I give the orders around here.”
* * *
The first time Humphrey showed Ripple the Dignity Kit was way back before Ripple started flunking everything, when it still seemed like he’d turn into a grown-up son who could be trusted with secrets.
“Your mother and I will only use it if we’re ruined,” Humphrey told him, taking the black box out of the safe, unlocking it. “Then you’ll inherit whatever’s left.”
The blue pills in their tiny vial. The golf pencils. They scared Ripple in a way the CGI beheadings and explosions on his XL projection screen never did. Who knew death came in travel size? Little Dunk: “But I don’t want whatever’s left. I want you and Mom.”
“Sorry, son. We’ll be dead.”
“Then I’ll take poison too.”
“There won’t be any for you.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’ll have taken it all.”
* * *
When Ripple comes to, he’s flat on his back, staring up into the sky. The city is so dark these days. Even a year ago, before the mutinies, he never would have been able to see this many stars. He doesn’t recognize any constellations, although he probably should. Back in underschool, he had to take Astrology for Scientists instead of Cosmonautics because, as usual, he bombed the placement test, which meant, unbelievably, that he missed out on a class trip in a special ion-propelled HowTram up above the atmosphere, where smarter students floated around laughing like maniacs and Kelvin kissed the YA impersonator Cheryl for the first time and some prodigy underclassman barfed gravy in arcs and spheres. Ripple only watched the episode later, after it was all over, when it was already old news. Just like his burnt-up house.
And his parents. His mom’s disconcertingly lithe stripper body, with the elective cesarean scar (“Your father wanted to keep me tight,” she informed him during her explanation of where babies come from), her waist-length platinum-blond hair and six-inch heels; his dad, with his velour sweatsuits and bad toupee, his ear whiskers, rosacea, and annoyed expressions—Ripple can see them both so clearly, like they’re projected on the night sky above him, their bodies mapped out in points of light.
“I’m sorry,” he says out loud. “I’m sorry I fucking suck.”
He wants to believe that they’re up there, star-parents living out eternity in a cloud city like something from a HowFly commercial, but they’re not. They’re dead. Whatever they thought of him, they’re not thinking anymore. There’s no one left to tell Ripple what to do. There’s no one left to care.
Did Swanny feel this way too, when she saw the torchies shoot her mom?
As hours pass, the sky lightens and Ripple orients to his surroundings. He’s locked in a wire cage on a roof—he’s betting the Fire Museum’s. The cage is big enough to lie down, but barely tall enough to stand up. No biggie: Ripple isn’t exactly springing to his feet anyway. He has an electricity hangover that he hopes isn’t brain damage, though it’s hard to tell. He does feel even dumber than usual. Dumber and more doomed. A dragon (the green one, his old buddy) passes directly overhead, at seven thousand feet but still too close for comfort. Walking the streets is bad enough, but at least there’s always the possibility of cover within easy ducking distance. Being here is like the park, but worse. Because this is where they strike. Depending on how long he’s out here, it’s only a matter of time till he gets fricasseed.