“The cleanliness?”
“No! — What am I going to do with you? The problem is the hole itself. See? Everything in Heropa is supposed to Reset after twenty-four hours, always in the middle of every night. It’s how we’ve been able to lay waste to most of the city, get some kip, and wake up to the renovations.”
“Then that crater shouldn’t be there?”
“Nope,” said the Brick. He winked at Jack and subtly made two horns on top of his head with his thumbs, as he nodded at PA. “We ought’a be navel-gazin’ Harvey’s Gems again. Reckon Harvey’ll be put out.”
“Who exactly is Harvey?”
“Dunno — the Blando that runs the joint?”
PA rolled her eyes. “I think it’s just a name — like Tiffany’s.”
“Got one more question,” Jack said.
“God. What now?”
“You mentioned the city rejigging—”
“Resetting.”
“Resetting, yeah. Do the Blandos also reset? I mean, do they rejuvenate or reanimate themselves, or whatever, like the city does every night?”
“Pfft. Who knows and/or cares?”
“Me,” the Brick complained. “Never thought ’bout that before — I’m gonna get zombie nightmare creeps after you tuck me in tonight.”
“Once they’re dead, they’re dead,” the Great White Hope spoke up from the nearby cockpit. “Blando casualties get rebooted, like we do, but the fatalities stay put. Same with the Capes, actually.”
“So — in what way do you tell if someone’s a Blando?”
“Let me think now,” Pretty Amazonia said in a mocking tone. “P’raps, maybe, by how yawn-inspiringly boring they can be?”
“Any other way?”
“I’d say that’s sufficient, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, sure thing,” interrupted the Brick, “there is the obvious ID. They all have a lower-case ‘p’ tattooed between their shoulder blades.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nup. Right here…” The beast struggled to point out an exact spot; unlike PA, flexibility was not his forté.
“Why?” Jack asked, feeling more than a little horrified.
“Dunno. Guess it’s a quick an’ easy reference t’see if someone’s bona fide or not — when they’re picking up the pieces at fight scenes, I mean.”
“You say it’s a ‘p’. If you call them Blandos, and you’re going to resort to that kind of crap, why not use a ‘b’ — for Blando?”
“Mebbe depends what angle you look at ’em. Like, if yer upside down, it’d read as a ‘b’, right?”
“Actually, that would make it a ‘d’.”
“Don’t get all pedantic, kid.”
A Citizens’ Band radio set, positioned in the single alcove above their pilot’s head, beeped hysterically, causing the Great White Hope to snap up the mic.
“Top of the morning to you,” he declared in jolly manner. Jack realized this was the man’s painful attempt to kid around.
“The Equalizers?” crackled a familiar, whining voice over the communal speaker.
“Roger.”
“This is the mayor. We have a situation.”
“Check that,” said the GWH.
“A diabolical situation!”
“Er — What kind of situation, sir?”
“Yeah, tell ‘im to get to the bloody point,” the Brick grumbled.
“The League of Unmitigated Rotters,” the single speaker squawked, “is laying siege to the Museum of Antiquities.”
“The museum?” Pretty Amazonia, who’d taken out a mirror to check her eye makeup, paused mid-burnish. “That lot are getting cultured on us.”
Jack was surprised they bothered with a museum dedicated to antiquities, considering Heropa was only about five years old.
“I believe the fiends are after the treasures of Pharaoh Rama-Tut,” nattered the mayor.
“Understood. F.A.B., sir.” Their pilot hung the microphone back on its hook.
“F.A.B.?” Jack queried, leaning forward to see out the front window.
“Full Acknowledgment of Broadcast,” the Great White Hope said.
“That’s not what F.A.B. means — the Big O told me it’s ‘Fully Advised, Briefed’,” cut in the Brick.
“And here I was thinking we meant ‘Fabulous’.” Pretty Amazonia had apparently finished her makeup repairs and inspected the job. “Not bad.”
“Regardless, flight path set in for the Museum of Antiquities.”
“Which means,” said the Brick in a low voice, “he’ll be steerin’, since there’s no on-board autopilot.”