Officer Marvin White had just returned home to his tiny apartment from a full day of work, pulling a double shift for the LAPD, and he had only a few hours to sleep before he had to return. Luckily nothing too major went down, nothing on the level on a zombie rising up from the swamp. Just the routine burglaries, drug busts, and domestic disputes.

As Marvin walked in, he kicked off his shoes and tossed his personal effects on the coffee table. He was too tired to make it past the couch as he fell face first on it, ready to sleep for the next three hours. He got a good two minutes before a knock came at his door. He tried to ignore it, but the knocks just kept coming. Muttering a profanity that was muffled by the cushion under his face, he got up and stumbled to the door, hoping whoever was on the other side had something important to tell him. As he opened the door, he got a shocked look on his face when he saw who was on the other side.

“You,” Marvin said in a surprised voice upon seeing a young woman with long black hair standing at his doorstep, wearing a teal jacket over a yellow top. She had on blue jeans and black leather boots. Off all the people in the world, this was the last person Marvin expected to see on his doorstep.

“Hello, brother,” Wendy White smiled.

PUPPET BOYS & UPTOWN GIRLS

By Tobias Christopher

“Come on, you stupid puppet!” Jordan Weir shouted from the safety of his own private base of operations, where he was watching the action via remote camera. The camera was hidden in the eyes of his puppet which looked like a twelve-year-old boy named Mitchell.

The puppet’s design was based on someone that Weir was intending to use against someone he hated dearly. A man he would be using the Mitchell puppet on now if it weren’t for the fact that his target had gone into hiding. But the puppet was serving another purpose, which was to bring the hero known as the Green Lantern to him.

Weir had placed Mitchell in dangerous scenarios all day, hoping that Green Lantern would eventually rescue the child, relying on the rumor that like all heroes, Green Lantern had an ego that couldn’t refuse a fan. Weir used that to con Mitchell’s way into the hero’s life through his best friend, Kyle Rayner. Mitchell was staying the night with Kyle until Green Lantern could take the child to an orphanage in the morning but if Weir played his cards right, he could get his puppet to permanently stay with Kyle to get closer to Green Lantern.

Unfortunately for Weir, the puppet was old and hadn’t had its circuitry updated in some time. This meant that the remote camera kept cutting in and out, along with other minor malfunctions, most of which Weir knew about and was prepared for. Then there was the one malfunction that Weir had no idea about, which would be Mitchell’s biggest flaw in Weir’s eyes when it came to light.

“Dammit,” Weir said as he put the puppet’s controls into auto-pilot. He’d programmed just enough into his living doll that Mitchell could operate on his own for a short while before his programming started repeating. Just enough time to get his camera back online, at least long enough to do what he needed to get Green Lantern into his clutches.

Kyle walked into his apartment, holding two bags of Chinese food. Enough to feed four people for three days, yet still have them be hungry again the next hour. He’d promised Alexandra that he’d be back in five minutes, but along the way home he realized that Mitchell had no night clothes, so he stopped into the store for pyjamas, underwear, and some clean clothes for the boy to wear to the orphanage.

“Alexandra? Mitchell?” Kyle asked as he looked around the empty living room. “Where are you?”

Kyle put the bags down and found a note on the counter. “Look in the refrigerator . . .”

Kyle slowly put his hand on the refrigerator, opening it to find . . . a brand new ice maker installed. No more having to mess those horrid ice trays that Kyle had to use a screwdriver to get the ice out of for his drinks.

“Surprise!” Maura said as she came out of Kyle’s bedroom with Alexandra and Mitchell. Maura had shown up just after Kyle had taken off, which meant she could install his present in peace and have it be a surprise.

“Mom, my birthday isn’t until next week,” Kyle said as he kissed his mother on the cheek.

“I know, but I got my work bonus early and wanted to get this for you before I spent the rest on bills,” Maura replied. “I see you stocked your fridge. It’s a good thing since you have a growing boy living with you.”

“Mitchell’s just here for the night,” Kyle told her, hoping she wasn’t getting too used to the idea of him raising a kid. He wanted to give his mother grandchildren to spoil, but not for another few years. “He’s going to the orphanage tomorrow.”

“Oh, Kyle, are you honestly going to send this sweet, innocent child to the orphanage?” Alexandra asked as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Just seeing you being so fatherly with such a sweet child is such a turn on.”

“Uh, okay, you only saw us together for like, two minutes before I stepped out, what’s going on?” Kyle asked as G’Nort ran out of the bedroom and started barking at Mitchell again. “G’Nort, no! Bad dog! Play nice.”

“It’s alright, Mr. Rayner, he just needs to get to know me,” Mitchell said as he picked the dog up and turned around so no one could see him holding G’Nort. He stared deep into the dogs eyes as his blue eyes started swirling, hypnotizing the dog. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you? You like me. Yes, you do.”

G’Nort started whimpering, falling under the same trance that Alexandra had been put under, then minutes later, Kyle’s mother when she just barged in unannounced. He’d entranced the people in Kyle’s life to love him, and now all that was left was Kyle himself. At least Mitchell work his magic on Kyle, but he hadn’t had a moment alone with the man since Mitchell was dropped off. Mitchell put G’Nort down on the ground, who then started rubbing up against the boy’s leg affectionately.

“Hey, how’d you do that?” Kyle asked as Mitchell just smiled. “He won’t even do that for me.”

“I have a way with people and animals,” the boy truthfully said.

“Right,” Kyle said as he picked up the bags of Chinese food. “Hope everyone’s still hungry.”

“I thought you were still seeing Europe?” Marvin asked as he brought his sister a cup of coffee. After graduation, Wendy had forgone college to travel for a while. Outside of the rare note, Marvin rarely heard from her.

“Europe got boring, so I decided to see if there was any action back home,” Wendy smiled as she took a drink of her coffee. “I see you’re living alone. Haven’t met the right girl yet, have you?”

“Uh . . . yeah,” Marvin laughed uncomfortably as he scratched the back of his neck. His parents and sister were the only ones Marvin hadn’t come out to yet. With no Terry in his life, he really didn’t see the need to do so at this point. “So, where are you staying?”

“This little motel up the street, but it’s just for a few days before I move on,” Wendy replied, not wanting to tell her twin brother the real reason she was in town. “Got a lot of traveling left to do before I settle down, so I figured I’d see my baby brother–”

“By ten seconds.”

“And spend some quality time with him,” Wendy told him. She honestly did want to spend time with Marvin, but there were other things she needed to do as well. Things that her brother, the cop, didn’t need to know about. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

After Alexandra and Maura had left, Kyle shoved the leftover Chinese food into the fridge before coming back out to the living room. Mitchell was sitting on the couch in a pair of green pyjamas. They didn’t have the Green Lantern’s logo on them so Kyle went with the next best thing. The pyjamas were a few sizes too big, but at least the kid had something to wear to bed.

“Do you need me to read you a bedtime story or something?” Kyle asked as he looked at the time.

“I’m . . .,” Mitchell paused briefly to search his memory banks for his age. Without Weir feeding him lines, he was on his own to retrieve information. “Twelve years old.”

“Okay,” Kyle said as he tucked the boy in. “You get a good night’s sleep, kid. Green Lantern will be here in the morning to pick you up to take you to a better life.”

“Why can’t I stay here with you?” Mitchell asked, unsure of why he was asking this. Weir hadn’t programmed him to ask that question. “Your mom and girlfriend like me, and I wouldn’t take up much room.”

“Look, Mitch, you’re a nice kid, but taking a kid in a huge responsibility,” Kyle told him while thinking of the bigger, greener reason why he couldn’t have a complete stranger living there. “I have trouble keeping up with G’Nort, and he’s a dog.”

“What if they put me into one of those homes where they beat me?” Mitchell asked, honestly really wanting to stay with Kyle. That was the flaw in Mitchell’s programming that Weir was unaware of. The more Mitchell was allowed to act on his own, the more his AI was growing. The puppet boy was starting to develop free will, and unless Weir regained control soon, Mitchell would have his own thought process by dawn.

“Hello? Yeah, Terry, I don’t have to be anywhere until my interview tomorrow afternoon, so I can give you a lift.”

As Kyle talked to Terry, Mitchell fell back on the couch against the pillow. He was out of original programming and would soon start to repeat dialogue and mannerisms from earlier in the evening since Weir had only programmed so much into him and his free will was still too young to do anything truly independent of Weir’s programs. His only option was to go into sleep mode for the night, so he closed his eyes and shut down for a while.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Kyle said to Terry as he hung up and looked back a Mitchell. “Huh, guess the poor kid’s all tuckered out. Goodnight, Mitch.”

Kyle pulled the blanket over the boy to tuck him in properly before heading to his own bedroom for a good night’s rest.

Captain John Stewart stared down at his desk, which was filled with paperwork that he had fill out. Some days he wished he’d stayed in construction, but no, he had to have a job that helped him reach out to the people and do something useful for the community. John’s father warned him not to leave the family business, but John Stewart wanted more from his life. And now here he was, having worked his way up from a patrol officer to the captain of the LAPD. What was his reward for years of hard work?

A precinct where a good portion of his officers were corrupt and he wasn’t sure who he could trust. Well, except for the one person he knew he could rely on to stay honest. The red-headed kid who had just barely passed his physical. But still, he saw something in Marvin that he saw in himself from his construction days. He saw a kid who wanted to make a difference in the world.

“Chief, you got a moment?” Marvin asked as he knocked on the door, having just reported for a four hour shift. He came in and closed the door, making sure it was shut all the way.

“What do you have to report, officer?” Stewart asked as he continued to stare down at his paperwork. The two had to be careful, as he was sure his office was bugged. There were a lot of powerful players in L.A., and they had their eyes and ears with the police station, so measures had to be taken to be careful of what they said.

“Nothing on the case at hand, sir,” Marvin replied. He was Stewart’s mole in the ranks, working to earn the trust of the other officers to find out who was corrupt to make it easier to weed out the ones who were on the payroll of the city’s various mobsters and dirty politicians. “Not since our last meeting.”

“Well, your last report was very useful,” Stewart replied. “Just keep your nose clean and stay safe. Come back to me the second you get a break in the case.”

“Yes, sir,” Marvin replied as he stood up. “Uh, sir, I know you’ll probably turn me down, but can I take tomorrow off? Something personal’s come up and–”

“Well, I knew this was coming since they legalized marriage for you people,” Stewart sighed. “Go with my blessing and good luck with married life. Hopefully you’ll fare better than I did.”

John Stewart rubbed the small scar on his left cheek as he got brief millisecond flash of the demon that was his ex-wife.

“What? Oh, no, sir, that’s not what I was talking about,” Marvin told him. “I’m not even in a relationship anymore. It’s just that my sister’s in town and I wanted to spend some time with her before she left again.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, you earned it,” Stewart replied as he looked up from his paperwork. He hated giving time off to anyone, but Marvin had been working his ass off to get information to him. “Wait, you broke up with Terry? When did this happen?”

“A while ago,” Marvin sighed. “It just wasn’t working out, so I had to end things. It’s for the best.”

“Sit down, officer,” Stewart told him with an exasperated tone as Marvin fearfully took a seat. To John Stewart, there were no boundaries when it came to those under him, not when he knew it would mess with their ability to get the job done. “We need to talk. Did you give up this boy up because of what I’ve asked of you?”

“Well, sir . . .”

“Answer the question,”

“Yes, sir,” Marvin said as he stared down at the ground. “I had to.”

“Officer White, I’ve known you since you were a cadet, I haven’t seen you give up on anything, even when I told you myself that you weren’t going to make it as an officer,” Stewart told him. “I told you to pack your things up and go home the first night, and what did you do?”

“I worked as hard as I ever had to pass training,” Marvin said as he looked up at the man. “”I nearly killed myself to get into shape to pass the obstacle course.”

“And why did you do that?” Stewart asked as he tapped his pen on the table, waiting for answer. He had seen Marvin and Terry together, and had witnessed Terry constantly pushing Marvin to succeed. The man even knew Terry’s family, having gone to school with his father. Currently John Stewart was in a bowling league with Terry’s dad.

“Because I wanted to be an officer more than anything,” Marvin told him without wanting to mention his ex. “Because I wanted to help the little guy.”

“Exactly. You’re not a quitter, Officer White, which is why I personally chose you to work with me on this particular case,” Stewart replied in a stern tone. “So why did you quit him?”

“Because I love him,” Marvin with a small smile. “I love Terry more than I love being a police officer, but you told me what I was facing if things went south and . . . if Terry ever got hurt because of me, I wouldn’t be able to live. I needed to do this, sir. He was my everything, even if I can’t be with him.”

“Okay, Officer White, you’re excused for now,” Stewart replied, knowing that Marvin was right. Having a loved one in the line of fire was the last thing either of them wanted. “Report to me anything else you find. And no more personal sacrifices for this job, that’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” Marvin said as he saluted before accidentally running into the door.

“I really should have stayed in construction,” Stewart sighed as he went back to his paperwork.

“Finally,” Weir said as he got the cameras back online early the next morning and found his puppet in sleep mode. “I don’t know what I’ve missed, but it’s time to wake up, my little instrument of evil.”

Weir took Mitchell off of auto-pilot just a half hour before dawn. Within seconds, the boy opened his eyes, ready to resume his mission. “First I have to make sure that my toy has a permanent place to stay.”

Mitchell got out the bed and headed toward Kyle’s bedroom, opening the door. The sound of a shower was running as Kyle was getting ready to start the day. Kyle was letting the water hit him as he was singing in the shower.

“Uptown girl, she’s been living in her uptown world. I bet she’s never had a backstreet guy, I bet her mama never told her why,” Kyle sang badly as he put the shampoo in his hair. “I’m gonna try for an uptown girl, she’s been living in . . . my eyes! It burns!”

As Mitchell was ready to corner Kyle, the older man rushed out of the shower to find the towel to get the burning sensation out of his eyes. As he rushed past Mitchell, he accidentally knocked the puppet boy into the shower, hitting his head against the wall. The cameras suddenly went out on Weir’s end again, while the puppet boy started twitching from the combined shock of hitting the wall, as well as water leaking into the small crack caused by the hit.

“Get back online, damn you!” Weir said as he started hitting buttons frantically.

“No more tears, my ass,” Kyle said as started blindly walking back toward the bathroom with the towel over his face, just in time to miss Mitchell walking out, twitching as he went. He fell back onto the couch and immediately went into reboot mode to repair his programming.

After washing the shampoo out of his hair and finishing his shower, Kyle pulled on some clothes and headed out to the living room to find Mitchell still on the couch. Since it was still dark out, he couldn’t tell the boy was soaking wet.

“At least my singing didn’t wake him,” Kyle said as he toweled off his wet hair. “Maybe I should let him sleep in for a while before I take him downtown.”

It was a few hours later when Weir finally got Mitchell’s systems back online, or as best he could so that the puppet could function somewhat normally. Mitchell opened his eyes and sat up, looking around. Between the accident in the shower and Mitchell’s growing AI, his programming was a mess. Mitchell would soon find himself going between Weir’s programming and his own free will at the drop of a hat.

“About time you got up, sleepy head,” Kyle told him as he was fixing waffles and bacon for breakfast. “Go get you a shower and get dressed. Green Lantern will be here after breakfast.”

Kyle turned away just in time for Mitchell’s eye to twitch. He got up and headed to the bathroom as Weir wondered what was going on. He hadn’t ordered the puppet to do what Kyle had ordered.

“What are you doing? Go put him under your trance!” Weir told the puppet, whose eyes were twitching upon hearing the voice in his head. He shook it off and continued on to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, Mitchell returned to the kitchen, missing his shoes, with his shirt turned inside out and his pants undone. His hair was uncombed and messy, still dripping wet. Free will would only take Mitchell so far, after all.

“Jeez, kid, and I thought I wasn’t a morning person,” Kyle told him as he lifted Mitchell’s arms to flip his shirt back the right way before helping him clean up. “Now where are your shoes? Green Lantern’s coming and–”

“Green Lantern?” Mitchell asked his eye twitched before shouting right in Kyle’s ear. “He’s my hero!”

“Yeah, I got that,” Kyle said as he took a step back to admire his dressing skills. “Well, it’s a step up. Too bad there’s not a magic fairy around to fix that hair.”

“Hey, Kyle!” Terry said as he walked in and saw Mitchell standing in the kitchen. “I knew it, you’ve held auditions to replace me!”

“Oh, please, like I need to hold auditions,” Kyle told him as he turned Mitchell around to face him. “You know the second Neil Patrick Harris returns my calls, he has the job. Terry, this if Mitchell. I’m watching after him until Green Lantern comes to pick him up. Think you can take care of this,” Kyle motioned his hands around Mitchell’s hair. “Before he gets here?”

“Dammit, Kyle, I’m an intern, not a stylist!” Terry said as he grabbed the kid’s hand. “Come on, let’s get you fixed up.”

As the two headed into the bedroom, Kyle made sure the door was closed before he looked down at his Green Lantern ring. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

“So, what’s your story, kid?” Terry asked as he tried to comb down the tangled mass of hair on Mitchell’s head. He squinted as he looked at the two young men in the mirror in front of them. He hadn’t put in his contacts this morning, which meant he had to rely on his glasses, which he hated wearing, so they were sitting safely in his jacket pocket. Which he’d left on the back of the chair in his bedroom at home.

“My parents are dead, and Kyle’s gonna take me in forever,” Mitchell replied as Terry stopped combing long enough to turn the kid around.

“Say what?” Terry asked as he looked at the kid.

Mitchell took the opportunity to stare into Terry’s eyes with his hypnotic vision, but had no effect.

“There something wrong with your eyes? They look funky,” Terry replied through his blurry vision as he went back to combing. “That should do it. Now let’s find your shoes and get you ready for Green Lantern to take you to your new home.”

As Terry turned around, Weir took the opportunity to take full command of his puppet. He picked up a lamp and struck Terry over the head with it, knocking him unconscious.

“I don’t know how he got past my hypnotism, but it won’t happen again,” Weir said as he used the puppet to bind Terry’s wrists and feet before dragging him to the closet. “I’ll deal with him later.”

It was then the doorbell rang, just as Mitchell shut the closet door. His eye started to twitch as he headed to the living room to open the door to see Green Lantern standing there, taking the chance to strike a heroic pose for his biggest fan.

“Well, hello, Mitchell, are you ready to go?” Green Lantern asked in his most heroic voice.

“Yes, sir, I just want to say goodbye to Kyle first,” Mitchell told him as he looked around for Kyle. “Where is he?”

“Uh . . . he’s out getting the morning paper, I think I see him coming now, hang on and I’ll give you two a chance to say goodbye,” Green Lantern said as he closed the door. Seconds later it re-opened as Kyle stumbled through, panting. “I guess this is it, kid.”

“I don’t wanna go, I want to stay here with you,” Mitchell said as he hugged Kyle. “Can’t I stay for a while, please?”

“Look, kid, I like you, but I’m not the father type,” Kyle said as he returned the hug. As he wrapped his arms around Mitchell, the puppet boy felt something he hadn’t felt before, but couldn’t place it. Was he actually . . . feeling? Before he could find out, Weir decided it was time to act and put himself in control to get the job done properly. “But I can come visit you at the orphanage, and the home they place you in.”

“Promise?” Mitchell asked as Kyle kneeled down to look him in the eye.

“I promise.” as he looked the puppet boy in the eyes, Mitchell’s eye started to go hypnotic, putting Kyle in his trance.

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” Weir said through Mitchell as he planted the suggestion into Kyle’s mind. “I think I’m going to be staying for a very long time.”

TO BE CONTINUED . . .