Summertime

Chapter Sixteen-Not Your Fault

“I guess you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today,” Fun Ghoul said with a grin, “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

We were gathered in the living room, eagerly awaiting the tale of the four Fabulous Killjoys’ escape. Kobra Kid’s location was unknown, but other than him the rest of us were lounging around the diner.

Party Poison, Jet Star, and Fun Ghoul sat on one of the several leather couches we had. Vine Spider was snuggled up to Poison, in his lap, and looking happier than I’ve ever seen her. Jet Star was sitting slightly hunched with his hands clasped together. Fun Ghoul was having a poking war with Star Lace, who was sitting on the arm of the couch.

Dr. D sat in a corner of the room, in his wheelchair, with Grace on his lap. Show Pony stood in the doorway, Noise Flag leaning against him. Absolute Zero and Danger Fate sat on the couch opposite from the boys, and Atomic Urgency was leaning against the wall cuddling me.

“How the heck are you guys alive?” Star Lace blurted the question we had all been wondering.

“Well, you see, the lasers that we were shot with weren’t lasers meant to kill. They were stun lasers,” Jet Star started slowly.

“Why would Better Living Industries have those? I thought they were trying to kill us,” Noise Flag said.

“We have Cherri Cola to thank for that. He was working undercover, as you know, and he knew we were going to show up to rescue Grace and Ghost Lightning. So, he replaced all of the lasers in the Dracs’ guns with stunners, instead of actually lethal lasers. Unluckily, the lasers were still long term, so we were unconscious for two months,” Party Poison explained.

“So when we were knocked out, Better Living Industries put us into body bags, thinking we were dead. Dead people—Killjoys, civilians, even other Dracs—can be easily resurrected by BLI and turned into their minions; Dracs or Exterminators. The chemical BLI uses to resurrect people wipes your memory and puts you under the effects of the pills—permanently. Better Living Industries put us into freezers, because the bodies must be thoroughly chilled for a few months before resurrection, and we were left there,” Jet Star said.

“That doesn’t make any sense. You would’ve needed to eat, or drink, or breathe, wouldn’t you?” Absolute Zero asked.

“The stunners put in the guns were very powerful; they halt all body movement. So naturally, we didn’t need to drink or breathe or anything. It was as if we were dead.

“In a case of extreme luck, we woke up just as Better Living Industries was getting ready to inject the solution that would resurrect us. So we used our mad ninja skills,” Fun Ghoul flailed his arms, “and escaped. We found our car, hopped in, and drove home. So, yeah, that’s basically it.”

“Well. I wasn’t sure to expect, but I definitely was NOT expecting something like that…” Danger Fate said.

“At least they still have all their limbs intact—no offense, Dr. D,” Show Pony said.

“None taken,” Dr. D muttered.

“Anyways, we were thinking…it’s time to really take BLI down. It’s time to do more than just shoot down a few of their little minions. Their power is going out of control, and it’s time to stop them,” Poison said fiercely.

“We’ve been talking about that,” I said quickly, “Zero got the radio working again, and we actually scheduled a meeting with two—oh, shit.”

We had completely forgotten about meeting those two Killjoys. Urgency quickly explained the situation, and in no time Party Poison, Fun Ghoul, Noise Flag, and Star Lace were off in the Trans Am to meet them. The rest of us decided to linger. I stayed because I was worried about Kobra Kid. I wanted to be here when he came back—even if he wanted to punch me again when he saw me.