Just For One Day

17

      "Well, I guess you'd better come in," said the man in red as he about-faced on his scooter. "You want anything? Coffee? Tea? I've probably got some soda in the fridge."

     I turned to look at Teravolt. The look on her face told me all I needed to know: that was Ranvier.

     He wasn't anything like I expected.

     "We need to kill him now!" Teravolt said in harsh whisper. "This could be our only chance!"

     "We can't!" I whispered back. "If we take him down then we might never find Meteor!"

     "He's got his back turned and everything! I'll help you find Meteor after I fry him!"

     Ranvier scootered backwards around the corner, back into view. "Coming?" he asked.

     I glanced at Teravolt, then turned the corner with Ranvier in the lead. With a quiet, frustrated noise, Teravolt followed.

     "So I guess we've got some things to talk about," Ranvier said. "It could get kinda awkward, but communication is the best tool that we have as humans, you dig?"

     I tried to wrap my head around what was happening. This was not how I pictured Ranvier at all.

     "Well, the two of us aren't necessarily strictly human, but she is," Ranvier chuckled. "Although I guess that's arguable now."

     "What have you done with Meteor?" I ventured. It probably sounded a lot less bold than I intended it to.

     Ranvier belly laughed and took another sip of his soda. "Meteor's mine now, kiddo. It took a lot of time and effort to snag him, too, so don't get any ideas about freeing him. Not that that's possible anyway."

     "What did you do?" I asked, trying to make sense of the situation. "Why do you hate Meteor so much?"

     "The crimson idiot and I go way back," Ranvier responded. "Way, way back. Over the years, he's spent pretty much all of his free time effing up my plans, and I used to be really hurt by that. I mean, I'm just trying to find my purpose in life, right? Then one day, I actually get caught when Meteor somehow beats me for the millionth time. So I spend the next couple of years being really, really angry." He laughed for the third time. "I mean, whoo! They stopped giving me new cellmates after a while, in fact. But then, a breakthrough: I started getting therapy. The doctor and I spent a long time figuring out exactly what it was that made me do the things that I do, and why I had such a short fuse. Turns out that I just needed some coping mechanisms. You know, things to calm me down when I was riled up. My therapist used to tell me: 'Roger, people can only hurt you if you give them permission to. If you don't let them get to you, you'll be invincible'. And I think those are some of the truest words that have ever been spoken. I mean, not literally, maybe, because during my escape I stabbed him in the jugular with a shiv made out of a plastic spoon, but in a spiritual sense. And I think that's more meaningful in the end."

     I listened, mouth agape at the words coming out of Ranvier's mouth.

     "So why are you still angry at Meteor, then?" I asked.

     "I'm not angry anymore," Ranvier said. "I'm not hurt, even. But that sure as shootin' doesn't mean that I don't still want revenge. It's just that now my head is clear about it." He tapped his temple with one finger. "Makes all this a lot easier. More fun, too."

     "So what is this?" I asked. "What's with DeLuge and Teravolt trying to take a bite out of me, too?"

     Ranvier inserted one finger into his ear and rubbed it around for a little bit. "I'll be honest," he said. "I've been trying to kill you for a long, long time, Jake. You're a serious pain in my ass, and probably the sole reason that I didn't have Meteor in my clutches months ago. So I decided you had to die. I told the Syndicate to do it, I told DeLuge to do it, I told your girlfriend there to do it...I even tried to be sneaky and sent you relentless dreams in the hope that you'd go crazy and murder each other. That didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to, as I'm sure you know. And by the way, while we're on the subject, it's pretty clear that both of you need to get laid in the worst possible way, because damn. And I do mean that. Come to think of it, I also told blondie there not to tell anyone about my hideout on pain of taking a long walk off of a short dock, but you know, it doesn't really bother me because I'm pretty bored of you both."