Episode LXIII

Marla Stewart and Molly Murphy got along like oil and water. Except oil and water separate because they are different; these two were too much alike. Each of them was used to being in charge and used to getting her way, and neither was prepared to back down or compromise if it could be helped. However, since they were stuck with each other for a while and Agent Murphy couldn’t leave her post as a “resort employee”, Marla did what she could to ease the tension by leaving Acid Resort as much as possible during business hours. Agent Evans, who was posing as a guest, was still able to follow her and provide “security”.

Marla had another reason for leaving the resort: she was determined to do her own investigation to try and discover who had been spying on her. The difficulty with this was that she had to do it with a bodyguard in tow.

The first line of investigation she tried was regarding the Mammoth City gangs. She hadn’t paid much attention to them since the murder trial she had testified in that had earned her a place in the Witness Protection Program. She had, in fact, done everything she could to avoid anything relating to her former life. Thus far this had seemed to be a working strategy, but now things were changing. She was beginning to have doubts about how long her current life as a quiet resort owner would last; this time, however, she did not intend to run and hide.

The Daze Springs Public Library had years of newspaper archives from the major Mammoth City newspapers. While Marla pored over years of news articles, trying to understand what had happened in the city since she’d been gone, Agent Evans stayed within sight of her, reading a novel. After a few days of this, she developed what she thought was a coherent picture of things. The information was not all explicitly printed, but for someone who knew the city it could be found between the lines.

Over the past couple of decades, the crime rate in Mammoth City had grown slightly faster than the population, while the police force had grown steadily more corrupt. An unofficial truce of sorts had developed between the gangs and the authorities: the city was divided into two halves. The upper half – in elevation as well as affluence – generally belonged to the law-abiding citizens. This part of the city was properly policed, and crime there, while not unheard of, was kept in check. The lower half of the city, however, was mostly ruled by the gangs. The police made nominal patrols of the area, but regularly accepted bribes to keep their activities to a minimum. Meanwhile, the area controlled by the gangs had gradually grown larger as the years passed.

All of this was interesting, and it felt good to get back up to speed with what was going on in her old home (even if the news was depressing), but she didn’t find any useful information about the more recent changes in gang behavior. There were a few references to the gangs acting with greater unity, and since the recall election was in two weeks there were a lot of references to the new mayoral candidate who was running on an anti-gang platform, but no there were no details that seemed relevant to her situation. Belatedly, it occurred to Marla that the Witness Protection Program had better intelligence sources than newspaper archives, and that she wasn’t likely to find out much that they didn’t already know through traditional research channels.

Around the time that she gave up on the library, Marla began to notice something that had been going on for a while. Her appetite had been gradually increasing, and she had also been having specific cravings, mostly for vegetables and dairy products. Mostly she thought this was strange since she had been spending so much time sitting down and reading, getting less exercise than usual. At least the cravings were for healthy things.

Not knowing where else to turn in researching Mammoth City gangs (short of actually traveling to Mammoth City, which Agent Evans would surely protest), and not knowing who else from her past life might be spying on her, Marla decided to shift her attention to a more recent problem. It had been a while since she’d had any run-ins with Acidity, but she knew better than to assume that she’d seen the last of him. Monster rumors continued to circulate (though thankfully without reference to her resort) and “zombie” rumors were starting to become more frequent than the monster ones. Really, it was surprising that Daze Springs hadn’t made any national tabloid headlines yet.

Not that Marla was likely to see the tabloids if they did. Another thing she discovered while finding reasons to leave the resort was that the public bathrooms there were not the only places she couldn’t go anymore without getting a debilitating headache. The list of such places included grocery stores, department stores, fast food restaurants and gas stations. Not all of them, just a lot of them. So far she hadn’t found a pattern, but shopping was becoming a genuine adventure.

Trying to track down Acidity seemed like it ought to be easy. He had to be the most recognizable entity in the town – even in the state, as far as that went – and the people who worked for him were highly noticeable as well. But wandering around hoping to run into one was a highly frustrating activity. After trying it for a while, she reflected that even if she did find one of his goons, she didn’t know what she’d do. Randomly grabbing a person off the street and demanding that he take her to see his master was another one of those activities to which her bodyguard might object. As was trying to follow someone unobserved.

But surely, she thought, someone else must have noticed what’s going on. All those zombie people have to have friends and family; he can’t have nabbed everyone they know or he’d have half the city by now. There’s got to be someone else either looking for him, or at least trying to find out what’s going on with those people… That’s when it hit her: There were other people who knew about Acidity: the employees at D.S. Scientific Studies Lab. The last time she’d tried to contact D.S.S.S.L, they’d denied that Acidity existed, but that was when they still had him in captivity. Maybe now that he was on the loose, they would be more willing to talk.

The lab site was still in a state of semi-chaos in the wake of the explosions and fires. Construction of new permanent buildings was in progress, but meanwhile the employees were carrying on their work in temporary structures. It took some effort just to figure out who she should talk to. After nearly two hours of waiting (punctuated by loud demands to speak to whoever was in charge) Marla finally was granted an audience with Dr. David Jockner. She remembered him as the man she had spoken with the morning they originally captured Acidity. As soon as they were alone in his office, she decided to remind him of this.

“Dr. Jockner, you and I both know that we’ve met before, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pretend otherwise,” she began.

“Why would I pretend otherwise?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.

“You tell me. Last time I called here, you guys pretended that you’d never spoken to me before.”

“Ah. Hmm.” He thought for a moment. “When did you call? Before the explosions?” She nodded. “I can see how that might have happened. It’s my own fault for not setting up better lines of communication. As you can imagine, we didn’t want a media circus over your monster, and thought it best to keep it as quiet as possible. Very few of our own people beyond those who helped with the capture were in the loop, and we did what we could to keep rumors to a minimum. Whoever answered the phone had probably heard nothing of any such creature, and if they checked, there was no mention of you in the files.”

“You could have arranged for calls from me to be forwarded to your office.”

“And I should have; as I said, this was my fault. To be honest, it didn’t occur to me that you’d have a reason to call again.”

Marla shrugged. The man might or might not be telling the truth, and at this point she didn’t care. She was ready to forgive and forget if he’d help her out now. “Fair enough,” she said aloud. “I assume you are aware that Acidity was responsible for your explosions, and that he’s still loose in the city?”

“What did you call it?”

“Acidity. Are you telling me you had him in here for weeks and you didn’t even find out his name?”

“I’m a bit confused. Assuming this is a name you’ve given to the creature, how would we—”

“I didn’t name him! What do you think I am, his mother?”

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’? Anatomically the creature does appear to be male, but we only discovered this on close inspection, which was difficult due to its – his – other peculiarities. I was under the impression that you hadn’t seen it up close.”

“Oh—well, I have since he escaped, but I knew before then because that’s how his minions refer to him. But even without, well, looking, you could tell it’s a ‘he’ by his voice.”

“I think I need to sit down; feel free to take a seat yourself; I think we’ll be here a while. And slow down please; one startling revelation at a time.” Marla sat as requested while Dr. Jockner did the same. He took a deep breath, and then asked, “Minions?”

Ninety minutes later she had related the entire history between herself and Acidity, with some slight modifications to avoid discussing her own “peculiarities”. It felt good to be able to finally talk with someone about everything, but as with the newspaper research the end result left her no wiser than before. The flow of information was almost all in one direction. Still, he gave her contact information for a lab employee named Abby Gillis, who she could call if she wanted to discuss things further. Abby, he explained, was currently working from Mammoth City, but made trips to Daze Springs two or three times a month. Marla felt certain that he knew more about Acidity than he was letting on – they must have discovered something about him at least from a physiological perspective – but she decided it was no use pressing the issue just then. Promising to keep in touch with Abby, she thanked Dr. Jockner and left.

Although she had already eaten lunch, Marla went to a restaurant (one that didn’t give her headaches) after leaving the lab, and ordered a large meal. She was nearly finished with it before she realized that it was her fourth large meal of the day. All this eating is going to make me fat, she thought. But she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself; she was just so hungry lately. When she stopped in to check on things at the resort, she weighed herself in her private bathroom (which fortunately she could enter without trouble) and found that she had, in fact, gained over thirty pounds. But I don’t look any different! Where is all that mass going? She wondered if she could visit a doctor without revealing her superhuman strength.

With regard to Acidity, Marla was running out of options. If the people at D.S.S.S.L. didn’t even know that he could talk, it seemed unlikely that anyone who hadn’t been injected knew much about him at all. This put her back at her original plan of hunting him down herself. The problem, she reflected, was that she knew next to nothing about detective work. Plus, it was hard to do anything clandestine with Evan Evans following her around. But perhaps there was another option. If detective work needed done, maybe she could hire a detective. It would have to be someone who didn’t mind dealing with the shadier element of the town, someone who was used to dealing with unusual cases, and above all, someone who would take the case and keep quiet about it without asking too many questions. Could such a detective be found? Probably not in the phone book, but maybe if she asked around in seedy places like pawn shops…

Early that evening (after another big meal which she fixed back at the resort to save money) Marla found herself inside a small office well hidden within a run-down building. There were no signs advertising its presence from the outside; Frank Evans (no relation to Evan Evans, who was curious about what she was doing but polite enough to accept that she wouldn’t tell him) only accepted business that came to him by word-on-the-street advertising. For her own part, she’d used a false name in setting up the appointment and wore a hood that concealed her features. Before the incident with the expired chemicals, Marla would have been nervous to enter a place like this, but now she was just pleased to see that the detective didn’t look like a zombie, although if he had it might have saved her some time.

“Who’s the guy outside?” He asked as soon as she came in. Marla was impressed that he’d noticed.

“He’s just my bodyguard,” she answered. “Don’t worry; he’ll leave us alone.”

“A bodyguard? Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I don’t trust you. But if I thought you were a physical danger just now, the bodyguard would be in here, not out there.”

“Touché. What can I do for you, Miss…Smith, was it?”

Marla hesitated, but decided that if he were as good a detective as she’d been told, she wouldn’t be able to keep her identity a secret from him. It was just as well that she hadn’t used her real name while asking around, but now it seemed reasonable.

“My real name is Marla Stewart,” she said, pulling back her hood. In the dimly lit office she failed to notice the look of shock and panic that momentarily passed over his face. “I want you to track down information on someone.”

“That’s what most people want from me. Who’s the subject?”

“I assume you heard the rumors a while back about a monster living in the pools at Acid Resort?”

“Yes,” he said without inflection.

“And you’ve heard more recent rumors about a monster living somewhere in the city, as well as the ones about people who act like zombies?”

“I hear all the rumors. Get to the point.”

“The two monsters are the same, and his name is Acidity. The zombie people work for him.” She paused, unsure whether he was taking her seriously.

“Go on,” he said in the same monotone.

“I want you to track down information about Acidity: where he lives, how many zombies he’s got, what he’s up to, anything you can find out.”

“I see.”

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Does it matter?”

“What I mean is, if you take this case, will you take it seriously?”

“I take every case seriously. Let’s talk about finances.”

Before she left, Marla made arrangements to meet the detective again in ten days. Three days before that appointment, she discovered that her appetite was returning to normal, but that she had gained a grand total of ninety-one pounds. She even bought a new scale to be sure. This is ridiculous, she thought. I still look the same as I did a month ago. There’s no possible way I could be hiding that much fat. At least with her super strength, it was no problem hauling the extra weight around.