Throughout the day, more and more conversations revolved around the rather catastrophic incident on I-295. Thousands of cars rested on the highway even now, forming a temporary roadblock to all who wanted to use the interstate. Nine people had died because they lost control of their vehicles, while over a thousand sustained injuries from collisions.
When a car’s muffler falls off, it drags behind the car. The car makes an absurd amount of noise and any driver would know immediately to get their car home or to a mechanic. Even so, the car is perfectly functional.
When Bath ripped off each car’s exhaust pipe, he didn’t just take off the muffler as news sources has first reported. Bath had savaged the underside of each car by twisting the exhaust pipe and ripping outward, tearing the metal bordering the car’s engine. The twist-rip technique was incredibly effective: Bath had used the motion to tear animals to pieces for millions of years now. It had been a favorite technique of his since its appearance in the great migration to land, when reptilian predators dominated the continent.
He listened attentively to the first few conversations about the incident, curious about people’s opinions on his maneuver. But, he soon found that they were all grossly uninformed. Even though it was now mid afternoon, nobody had reported the fact that electric cars were left unscathed. Bath knew I-295 had electric cars—he had seen them himself!—and was a bit annoyed that none of the electric car owners had spoken to news services about their cars been unscathed.
Now, instead of listening to people speak ominously about future attacks to come over lunch, Bath’s thoughts wandered to last weekend, when Lisa had brought him down to her family’s lakehouse.
Bath had seen lake houses before, though he had never visited or stayed at one. Lake houses had a vast range of aesthetic: some were little more than log cabins, while others were flamboyant mansions. Lisa’s was definitely closer to the flamboyant mansion side of the scale, though the lakehouse wasn’t excessively decadent. It was brick with white siding, and sat atop a small hill. There was a dock about half a mile away that lead off into the Pacific; two small boats bobbed on the water off to the side, tethered in place. Two jet skis were parked off the right side of the dock, though the water was far too chilly this time of year for jet skiing.
“Welcome to the lake house!” Lisa had exclaimed as they exited her parents' black Mercedes. The car ride itself had been rather long, though Lisa’s parents filled the space with idle banter. Lisa had slept most of the way there, and since Bath didn’t really need to sleep, he had spent much of the car ride looking out the window. Part of the car ride snaked through the Smoky Mountains, a range that Bath had never spent much time exploring. Seeing the vast fog pool off the trees was eerily beautiful.
Lisa rushed ahead of her parents to enter the house, Bath following in tow. They carried their bags to the second floor and then split up, Lisa directing Bath to his own guest room. After he unpacked, Bath sat on the bed and sent out tiny tendrils of essence from his Center as an exercise in long-range control to map out the house. In a minute, largely due to the house having a good ventilation system, Bath had a general idea of where most rooms were in the house.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he recalled the strange room he had detected underneath the basement floor of the lake house. To his knowledge, a floor even further underneath a typical basement should be in violation of building codes. The size of the room, on top of everything else, was incredibly peculiar: a large rectangle that expanded backward to below the road.
He hadn’t been able to determine what the room was because it was just so weird. He sent out his tendrils to cover every surface of the room, only to find smooth surfaces devoid of decoration. No tables, no furniture, nothing.
Bath wasn’t naive enough to believe someone would illegally construct an enormous room underneath their lakehouse and leave it empty.
But, he didn’t know how to bring up the room without revealing how he knew about it. He considered asking Lisa, but he figured she couldn’t know anything about it. She wasn’t the one who built the lakehouse, nor did she spend any appreciable time in it. Her parents might know, but who Bath really wanted to interrogate were Lisa’s aunt and uncle.
The couple had built the lakehouse around twenty years ago, snagging the lakefront lot for, Bath was told, a bargain price. The couple was currently living in the lakehouse, having already returned from their Florida condo in anticipation of Spring. Bath met them when he went down to the kitchen to meet Lisa after unpacking.
“Ah, this must be Bath!” they exclaimed as he entered a parlor room connected to the kitchen in an open floor plan. Bath could see now that Lisa still hadn’t finished unpacking and freshening up. Bath grumbled internally: how long did it take for her to get ready? He'd even spent several minutes scoping out the house and he'd still beaten her to the kitchen!
“Hello,” Bath said calmly. He hated meeting new people when he didn’t know anything about them.
“Lisa has told us so much about you!” the woman exclaimed, coming over to him with a cheerful smile on her face. Her heartbeat, though, seemed a bit rushed, as though she were nervous.
“Oh really? Like what?” Bath was genuinely curious. He didn’t often meet people who only knew Lisa; most people she knew, he knew. Such was the reality of growing up with a friend.
“Well,” the woman began; the man stayed silent, a smile working its way across his features. “She alleges you're as good at basketball as she is.”
Bath nodded. Perhaps some male humans would be insulted by such a statement, but Bath knew Lisa was an absolute monster at basketball. She had the instinct for it, the aggression. He was good at basketball because he was good at everything. Lisa was good at basketball because she was gifted.
“She would say that. If I play against her, I win seven of ten games. If I wasn’t taller than her, she'd be winning every game, no doubt.”
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“That’s our Lisa,” the woman chuckled. “I'm Lauretta, by the way. I can’t believe I didn’t introduce myself. This here is Bern, my husband.” Bern gave a wave. Lauretta focused her attention on Bath, then said, “Lisa said that you're also one of the top students in school.”
Bath didn’t really know what kind of etiquette this was, but their behavior felt odd, out of place. His instincts fired off warning signs. Not warning of danger, necessarily, but of scheming and plans. A very human-nature-informed warning sign.
Something clicked into place. He did recognize this kind of behavior after all.
“Do you think I'm Lisa’s boyfriend?” he asked them wryly. He was almost certain that they knew he was just a friend, yet their questions were too appraising to pose to a mere friend of their niece.
Lauretta laughed. “Oh, honey, we know you're just friends. We just want to know more about you.” Bath’s suspicions were in no sense quelled, but he decided to take the words at face value for the sake of politeness. He was a guest, after all.
“Then in response to what you said before: I’m a good student, though Lisa would be our class’s Valedictorian if we were all to graduate today.”
“Lisa is the paragon of our family,” the man, Bern, noted, finally breaking his silence. “We don’t have any children of our own, so we like to think of Lisa as the daughter we never had.” Bath sensed that the couple had tried and failed to have children, so he didn’t press them for details. He was at least that socially competent.
“She is undoubtedly the most interesting person I have ever met,” Bath added. "She isn’t afraid of anything.” He suddenly realized he was looking at a painting on the wall instead of the couple, something he knew to be rude in polite company. Eye contact was important amongst humans. He looked up at them and realized that they were giving him puzzled expressions.
So he elaborated: “You both should caution her more,” Bath warned playfully. “Her parents let her do whatever she wants. Thankfully for them, Lisa’s too smart to try cliff diving or something reckless like that, but really, she’s willing to do anything.”
“Like what?” Lauretta pressed, her face surprised and engaged. Bath felt like a seal facing off against a great white shark as he sensed the woman’s ravenous interest in her pseudo-daughter’s life. Lisa must not tell them much; she was a fairly tight-lipped person when it came to adults, so Bath wasn’t exactly surprised.
“Hmm,” he intoned while he drudged up some innocuous memory that would please the woman’s curiosity. “Well, for instance, less than year back, Lisa and I went to a huge concert. Even I can’t believe what happened, and I was there.”
Their eyes widened; they were hooked. Bath suppressed a smirk. Humans and their social games.
“Lisa and I were separated at the beginning of the concert because the crowd was so large. People were pushing to get to the front; Lisa and I realized that we were going to be pushed apart, so we both agreed to meet again once we arrived at the front of the crowd. This implied that we would both be able to push to the front."
“There were at least 3,000 people on the floor of that concert, all contending for spots near the front. By strength alone, I managed to push my way. But Lisa wasn’t that strong; though she was small, I didn’t think she would be able to push her way through the throng of people.”
“However: not only did Lisa get to the front, she beat me to the front.” Bath knew the couple wouldn’t understand the significance of this statement. Bath had actually augmented his strength, speed, flexibility, etc. to reach the front as quickly as possible. Lisa had none of those advantages, and yet managed to reach the front first. He'd asked her how, but she'd never told him; she claimed it was a secret.
“And at the front, she orchestrated the formation of a mosh pit. Then, when the headliner called out into the audience to ask for a volunteer to sing one of the band’s hits, who else but Lisa,” he emphasized her name, spreading his arms wide in incredulity, “was chosen to come up on stage? She went straight up to the lead singer, shook hands, went to the mic, sang the song like the concert was her very own, and roused the stadium into a frenzy. She only gave her first name when the band asked her to introduce herself, so nobody knew who she was, but I swear, if she'd told people her full name, she'd have thousands of followers right now.”
“Wow, that’s incredible!” Lauretta gaped.
Bath quirked an eyebrow. “That’s not the end of the story.” He grinned devilishly. Ah, Lisa might hate him for this, but it was too funny to stop now after seeing how the couple doted on Lisa like she was their own. Bath remembered when he told this story to Lisa’s parents and was eager for a repeat reaction. The worst Lisa could do was swat him.
“When Lisa finished the song," Bath continued, his face alight with mischief. “She went over to the lead singer, told him ‘Thank you,’ and then kissed him on the lips. I couldn’t believe it was unscripted, but apparently the lead singer hadn’t been expecting anything, ‘cause when Lisa finished he said quite audibly into the microphone, ‘Holy shit.’”
The couple stared at Bath, their jaws practically unhinged. He cackled. “The way that she swaggered off the stage...she was a conquering champion returned home. She held up her arms,” Bath explained, lifting his own to recreate the gesture, “and the crowd knew exactly what she wanted to do. She jumped into the audience and crowd surfed for a solid two minutes, which is a crowdsurfing eternity.”
“Then, the crowd let her down, and when she came back up to the front, the crowd parted before her like she was Moses and they were the Red Sea. When Lisa found me at the front, she just grinned at me and leaned against the metal bars separating us audience members from the stage. You both should know that she’s absolutely wildly crazy,” Bath laughed. “In the best way, of course. But doing that kind of thing, it’s hit or miss. Hence my advice for you two to tell her to be more cautious.”
Bath nearly died at their shocked expressions. The Lisa they knew was a star student athlete. That side of Lisa wasn’t a lie, obviously, but just a small piece of the enormous puzzle that was her.
“Oh, and that’s just one story,” Bath grinned, feeling exceptionally Machiavellian...and that was when Lisa entered the room, saw the shocked expressions on her relatives’ faces, and predictably swatted him on the shoulder with enough power to leave him reeling.
“Hi, Aunt Lauretta, Uncle Bern,” she called out jubilantly, her eyes closed as per usual while she smiled. Her smile lessened and her eyes opened, full of playfully vengeful energy. Crap; Bath had hoped not to be caught in the act. She would definitely reciprocate his candid storytelling with her own form of payback.
“What was Bath telling you?” she inquired, her voice saccharine. Bath put on a mock innocent expression, his mouth quirking up into a nearly invisible smile.
She knows me so well.