Excerpt: Slipping Through the Cracks, by Harper Kingsley

Title: Slipping Through the Cracks
Author: Harper Kingsley
Character: Franz Caulder/Ryan Wilder, Dr. Pamela Werth, Nicole Carson
Genre: mm
Rating: mature
Summary: Kid Nitro went to sleep in his own bed, and woke up on another Earth in the body of an alternate Franz Caulder. It’s a world without metabilities, which is jarring enough, but it’s also a world where Other-Franz is a mental patient grappling with some serious problems.

* * *

Franz went to sleep in his bed.

He woke up to a changed world.

The first thing he noticed, even before he opened his eyes, was that his sheets were strangely scratchy and his mattress was mysteriously hard with more jabby parts than he had ever experienced before. He imagined it was what lying on a bed of nails was like.

Franz sat up with a groan and his eyes widened in shock as he looked around.

The room he was in was painted a glaring white and was sparsely furnished. There was a plain brown dresser against the wall and a cheap framework desk under the barred and uncurtained window.

The bed he was on was a metal frame with a thin futon mattress thrown on it. Uncomfortable and unappealing, it–along with the bars on the windows and and the complete lack of any kind of personality in the room’s decor–gave him his first inkling of where he might be.The slate blue drawstring pants and the thin white tee shirt he was wearing gave him his next clue. They definitely weren’t the pajamas he’d gone to sleep in.

Donning the robe and cheap cloth slippers he found, he tried the door and was pleased when it opened easily. At least he was in a minimum security facility. He’d been half-afraid he’d been locked in the depths of Rotham, but obviously he was somewhere much fluffier and lighter.

He stepped out of the bedroom to find himself in a large common room.

Long couches had been used to section off a square of space in the center of the room. The U-shape the couches created was opened to face the nurses’ station.

Around the walls were dozens of closed doors, all private rooms. On the far end of the room, left-hand kitty corner to the nurses’ station, was an open door that seemed to lead into a large, airy arts and crafts room. That was probably where most of the real mental health work took place.

For a mental ward, the place was actually pretty nice looking. All brown and goldenrod color, comfortable couches, and the illusion of freedom to move around.

There were other patients. He glanced at them out of the corner of his eyes, not wanting to be caught creep-staring. A brown haired lady quietly sat on one of the couches gazing blankly into space. A dark haired man jerkily strode around the room with manic energy, his hands fisting and punching at his sides. A gray haired man with baggy eyes slumped on the floor in a corner, every line of him proclaiming his physical misery.

Franz had to be the youngest person in the room, but no one seemed too terribly surprised to see him. So either they were all in on his abduction, or something more was going on here.

“Ah, Franzy, I’m glad to see you’re finally awake.”

Franz turned to face the woman in the pink blouse with the name tag that read ‘DR. WERTH.’ “Hello doctor,” he said, trying to make his voice sound close to normal. He really didn’t want to give away the fact that he had no clue who she was.

“Are you feeling better today?” she asked gently. “Do you feel up to making the meeting?”

Rightfully guessing she meant a group session, he really wanted to say no. But he needed information, and interaction with the people here was the only way he could get a clue about what was going on.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

She smiled brightly, then moving slowly as though he were a wild animal, she gently touched his shoulder. Just a single pat, but the expression on her face made it into some gravity defining breakthrough. “You’ve come so far,” she said. “I’m very proud of you and I’ll be happy seeing you at the meeting.” So obviously she thought she knew him, though that may have been part of an act.

He didn’t understand why he was in this place with these people, but he was going to figure it out. And then he was going to kick the ass of whoever had ripped him out of his bed to bring him here.

 

So group therapy was a bust. Not just because he didn’t know what he was supposed to say to this bunch of strangers, but because there was no big dramatic reveal about how he’d ended up in this place.

He got to sit on a hard plastic chair in a circle with a bunch of people he didn’t know while trying to figure out what had happened. And it was only a little eerie that they were all acting like he’d been to their meetings before, every single day for nearly a year. It was creeping him out.

What the hell is going on? he thought, shuffling out of the room after the other scrubs wearing patients.

This seemed like a real mental hospital with real mental patients and he was here. This was not some nightmare or drug induced delusion. He was Franz Caulder, and he was really here.

Not for long, he promised himself.

He made his way into the dining area with the others and took the chair next to the man that had seemed so angry earlier. The guy had calmed down, but the corner of his mouth still twitched and there was something dangerous in his eyes that Franz recognized and refused to relax around.

A recovering alcoholic suffering withdrawal symptoms could be unpredictable.

As he ate his chocolate pudding and nibbled on the breaded fish fillet he’d been given, Franz kept himself ready in case the guy blew up or something. He figured one hard jab to the throat and an arm bar and he’d have the guy controlled if he started to rampage.

“You’re being very weird today. What’s wrong with you?”

Franz looked at the woman sitting across from him in surprise. “Excuse me?”

She cocked her head, her stringy blond hair falling over her face. She looked as though she hadn’t showered in several days and her eyes were dark circled and tired. She was probably in her mid-twenties and spoke to him familiarly, but he’d never seen her before in his life.

“‘Excuse me,'” she mocked, her mouth forming a pout around the words. “Seriously, dude, you’re freaking me out. What’s wrong with you? Did you suddenly realize that you’re in the nuthouse or something?”

“Well, I took one look at the outfit and I didn’t have to look much further,” Franz said. He’d always had a gift for rolling with whatever situation. It was one of the things that had always made him a great crime fighter.

“There’s something weird about you today and I don’t like it. You’re acting like a completely different person.” It was subtle, but as she spoke her mouth kept trying to tremble. She was actively having to work to keep herself under control. He knew the signs; whatever mix of meds she was on wasn’t quite right.

“I had some bad dreams. I’m still processing.”

She looked skeptical. “Bad dreams have given you a complete personality change? I don’t think…”

“Nicole, you forgot to pick up your pills again.” There was the soft squeak of orthopedic shoes on the laminate floor.

The woman–Nicole–grimaced at Franz, but managed to hide the expression as she turned to the nurse. “It messes up my head all day. Do I really have to take them?”

The nurse was firm. “Yes.”

Franz watched curiously as Nicole accepted the little paper cup and downed the pills in one swallow. She chased them down with a few gulps of her apple juice.

“There, are you happy? Are you going to Nazi it up some more?” Nicole demanded.

“There’s no reason to be rude.” The nurse shook her head and walked away.

Nicole turned back to her tray with a growled out, “Bitch” that the nurse had to have heard.

Franz blinked. “You know, calling someone a Nazi because you don’t like them is really disrespectful to all the people that lived through the Holocaust.”

She turned to him with fire lighting up her eyes. The twitching of her lips became something mildly grotesque, a flash of teeth and gums as she sneered. “We’re in a Holocaust right now. They’re trying to wipe us out just because we’re mentally defunct. They look at us, and because we don’t fit with their great machine they want to relegate us to hospitals and prisons where they can strap us to a bed and rewire our brains. They want to insist that it’s for our own good, but it’s for themselves. Everything people do as a society is for themselves and we’re left to ooze our way through the cracks like the Blob.

“We’re just a joke in the gears of their giant machine. They’re going to grind us into paste and scoop us up onto their crackers. People eat people. We’re nothing more than the food of the great society. We live and die and no one cares as long as we’re quiet like little mice. The world is completely fucked.”

“Okay.”

Franz didn’t even try to argue. Not when spittle was flying out of her mouth and her eyes were rolling around wildly. She’d seemed like someone he could talk to, but it was obvious that she had some serious issues she wasn’t dealing with.

He ate his pudding and kept quiet.

 

By the time he was back in his room and was sure he would have a bit of time alone, he was about an inch away from throwing a screaming fit.

Making sure the door was tightly closed, he pulled the napkin wrapped bundle of pills he’d hidden in his underwear out and took them directly to the bathroom. He was glad they trusted him enough to allow him his own toilet and sink; he knew there were some facilities where the patient was only allowed a bare mattress and could expect invasive body searches on a regular basis.

He flushed the pills down the toilet and felt a little better.

Most of what he knew about mental hospitals was stuff he’d learned from TV and movies. He’d been worried all day that he was going to get caught with the pills and evil doctors would end up giving him shock therapy or a lobotomy. It was terrifying.

Franz stood in front of the sink and examined himself in the mirror. It wasn’t made out of glass, just polished metal, which left his reflection slightly wavery and out of focus. He was able to see himself, but for a long moment he didn’t recognize the man standing there.

This was the first time he’d seen himself since he’d woken up. He hadn’t realized he would look different from what he was used to. It sent a jolt of fear through him.

This all might be real.

The man in the mirror was in his early-twenties with the light brown skin he was used to. His black eyes were almond-shaped and there was something Asian about the cast of his features, but he mostly looked black. His mother had been half-white and half-Japanese while his father had been black. They’d died when he was too young to have many memories of them, though he remembered how British they sounded.

The fact that he knew they spoke with Estuary English accents had been something he’d learned from Nigel. Before that he’d watched old home movies of them and thought they sounded like something off the BBC. It had also been Nigel that had told him all the stories he’d missed about who his parents were.

His mother had been Sophia, his father was Terence. They had been Butterfly Woman and Mothman, and Dr. Scourge had torn his family apart.

Dr. Scourge had killed Terence, and Sophia had killed the supervillain. Then she’d taken her grief, bottled it up tight, and burnt herself out fighting crime for another year as a solo act. One day she’d gotten careless and she’d died, leaving him an orphan with more questions than answers. Some part of him had never forgiven her.

He’d lived in foster care until he was ten, never understanding what had happened to his parents. Until Nigel had come and taken him away, an old friend of his parents that only wanted the best for him. And Nigel had turned out to be Lightspeed. He lived with a superhero and he’d grown up to be a superhero himself.

He was Franz Caulder. He was Kid Nitro. He had battled supervillains and helped to protect the world from destruction.

But the guy in the mirror… He didn’t know what to think of that guy.

There were strange shadows and a jagged series of scars across the left side of his face. When he turned his head sideways, it looked like the letters FA or FR had been carved from his jaw up toward his ear; the writer had been interrupted given the ragged upsweep that almost bisected the corner of his eye. The skin was puckered and burned looking, though the blade must have been as sharp as it was hot.

He stared at himself and it looked bad. That scar looked old, several years at least, something that had to have happened when he was a teenager. It was ugly, no doubt about that, and hadn’t received any kind of aftercare. One look told him the wound had healed naturally with no doctors.

Franz would have immediately gone to a plastic surgeon. If one of his bad guys had carved up his face like that, Franz would have used his League of Superheroes medical card at the nearest hospital. He would never have a scar like that, not with the miracles of modern medicine.

There was something very bad wrong here and he was beginning to suspect that it was him. He hadn’t been in his bed last night, or at least this body hadn’t. This body had been here, locked up nice and cozy with Other-Franz in his cell where he belonged.

Just like in the old Chrestomanci books. He’d been body snatched. It was the only explanation.

Like the gears in some great machine his Essence, or soul, had been shifted one universe over. And somewhere out there someone was walking around in his body living his life. While he was here in this alien/familiar/terrifying body with this giant, horrible scar across his face.

Franz reached up to touch the scar, but stopped. His finger hovered, then he dropped his arm.

He stared at his reflection for a long moment and forced his shoulders square. He could handle this. He was Kid Nitro. He could handle *anything*. Even a crazy case of body switching.

He would just have to remember to be careful not to damage the body. It wasn’t his, and he already missed that vibrant hum that had always filled him before. He felt wrapped up in the fleshy prison and it was strange feeling so powerless, but he would do his best to take care of the body. Because until he managed to switch back, he was only borrowing someone else’s skin.

There went his chances of ever being a beauty queen.

The laugh garbled out of his throat and he stumbled out of the bathroom to flop down on the bed. It was uncomfortable, but he didn’t care.

He was in an alternate universe. It was the only explanation.

“Fuck, why me?” He covered his face with his hands and allowed himself the luxury of a hysterical moment. The barely muffled sounds that escaped his mouth made his own ears hurt, like listening to some wounded animal he couldn’t help.

It was cleansing though. Letting it all out.

And when he’d gotten himself back under control, he forced himself to his feet and began examining the room. It wasn’t that bad. The doors opened and he had his own bathroom and he wasn’t sharing with anyone. Definitely not too much like real prison.

He’d been to prison before, or at least the juvenile version of it. They’d been pulling a sting and he’d been undercover at Barosoma, otherwise known as Kiddy Max. The CMPF were tracking Hesse Mijandro, the leader of the Purity Movement’s Junior Believers, and Franz had been asked to befriend Mijandro’s cousin Ursa.

He’d done a good job of it and they’d become prison friends, close enough for Ursa to see him as a real friend. And after they’d gotten out–timed close enough to keep the relationship meaningful but not close enough to be suspicious–it had seemed completely natural for Ursa to invite him around.

They’d gone to movies, they’d shopped, they’d gone to baseball games, it had been great. Franz hadn’t had that much fun with another person in a long time and it had felt real. Ursa had become a friend.

And through Ursa he’d gotten close to Tiedre Mijandro. Close enough to be invited to the Mijandro compound overnight. He’d done his job. He’d gotten the information and he hadn’t been discovered. Six months of being Alex, friend and sometimes lover of Ursa and Tiedre, had left him feeling changed inside, but he’d done it. Because he was Kid Nitro, sidekick of Lightspeed.

The Mijandro case had won him a lot of respect. They’d seen him as a kid and some had tried to talk him out of taking the job, but he’d told them he was ready to do his part. He was ready to go in and use Ursa to get what he needed and it was going to be no big deal.

The Purity Movement had taken a big hit when their junior division was brought up on criminal charges for selling drugs and guns and robbing houses. And the world was made a little better.

Except he’d felt like crap for a long time. Ursa and Tiedre had really become his friends, and he’d brought down their family. It had killed him to see them hurt, but Hesse Mijandro had been out of control. Franz had done what he needed to do.

He was Franz Caulder. He was Kid Nitro. He made the hard choices. He did his job.

He firmed his jaw and the last of his quiet sniveling faded away. He’d been in hard spots before. He’d get through this.

 

There wasn’t anything of much interest in the room. The dresser held more of his same scrub pants and tee shirt ensembles, along with a bundle of white socks and plain briefs. There was a plastic tub in the corner that held some paperback novels–mostly sci-fi and fantasy–and a handful of spiral notebooks. That was about it, other than a red hoodie flung over the back of the room’s single chair.

He thought about taking the bed or the chair apart to fashion some kind of weapon, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. He needed to find out more about why he was here.

All he needed was to bust out of the hospital, then have Nigel manage to flip him back. If the Other-Franz had a mental illness that made him violent, the last thing Franz wanted to do was break the guy out. That was like an invitation to feeling guilty if Other-Franz went on a murder spree or something.

He grabbed the hoodie and pulled it on. The inside was soft fleece and he lifted the hood up around his head. That was a lot better.

So he was in another world in an alternate version of his body. He could deal with this.

“I’m Kid Nitro,” he whispered, climbing back onto the bed. It took him a long moment to find a comfortable position lying on his side and he wrapped his arms around his legs.

He would find out everything he could about this world and he would make sure no one knew that he didn’t belong. Because if he told the doctors here that they needed to let him out because he was a different Earth’s Franz Caulder, they would think he was crazy and he would only make things more difficult for himself.

He needed to play this cool and smart.

“I’m Kid Nitro.”

/ EXCERPT