Blind Photographs

“I really don’t know. Jet Star ran me inside. What is this place?” I felt the walls.

Felt like stone. Smelled like dirt and linoleum.

“It connects all over the underground.”

“Like in 21,” I noted.

“Yeah, like in 21. When did you get out there?”

“Not long ago, it was with Red Rocket, Blue Blaze, and Yellow Yankee. Called themselves the Primaries. Let’s see… back then, my hair was purple, so they called me Purple Haze after some absolutely ancient song. We’re talking like, 1970s. The tunnels reflected light all over, and if they caught the reflection of our hair right, it was like a rainbow. Tunnels were ice there, though.”

“Your glasses didn’t fog up?” Dr. D asked.

“Didn’t need them then,” I sighed longingly.

“Where were you?” Grace asked with wonder.

“I can trust you, D, right? This is like a confessional.”

It was now or never, might as well let someone know the story before I bit the dust. I took their hands, uncomfortable with the cold, unmoving air around us.

“You got it, Sunshine.”

“First off, Boom Box is my sister. Blood related. My name is Faith. I started out in B city. The Meds sprung me. Well, kidnapped me technically. Lithium Angel needed to take care of someone, motherly instincts or something like that. I was the closest thing they could find before she went completely insane. It was nice, like having a mom again. She ran with Needles Glow, Anti-B, and sometimes a man would stop by for a while. He went by Doctor Speed. What was my name then…”

“How many different names have you had?”

“This is my seventh, I think. Anyway, right! Dyed my hair blue. They called me Gauze, because I stopped Lithium’s heart from breaking. I ran from them once I learned they were doing drugs left and right. So then the Primaries found me as they made their way east, and let me come along for the ride. It was right before I was supposed to start training that I left. Too cold for me. Left a note and didn’t look back. Makes me a jerk, I know, but I couldn’t take it. So I hitch hiked and wandered until I found myself somewhere in zone 16, at which point I was kidnapped by the Ghosts who thought I was a bounty hunter. I was maybe… 13, then? They realized I was no threat and let me stay with them. They didn’t have names.”

“How’d you know who you were talking to?”

“I mean, they called me sweetie or kid, crash queen or whatever, and I called them sir or old fart. If you're talking about how I told them apart in general, they had different voices, different smells, different personalities, I stayed with them just long enough to figure it out. ”

“They were all guys?”

“From what I could tell, yeah. The thing about the ghosts was that they never showed their face."

My kind of people, I remembered absently.

"Soon as I joined them, they gave me a mask and bleached my hair white. I came back to look for you, around then. The Ghosts lost one- he was about twenty, I think- to the city. After I learned you’d been taken I went back to try and help them. Got caught myself, and got a new tattoo.”

I gestured vaguely to my wrist. Didn't feel like they were looking so I carried on.

“BCO7736505. Battery City Offender. Hurt like you wouldn’t believe. I mean, the one on my ear hurt too, but they numbed it first. They cut off as much of my hair as they could without shaving it and threw me into a juvenile rehab type center. That’s where I met Harley. She was in the cell next to mine. They’re really just glass boxes with some ventilation holes that pump in a vapor form of the pills. I was drugged up pretty bad but she, for whatever reason, wasn’t affected. Never bothered to find out why, I guess. She looked like something out of a magazine. Shiny blonde hair, even in the facility, and these eyes- god, her eyes. Like little circles of sunset that were just as bright. My hair started growing in again and I was actually looking decently healthy after being sleep deprived and delirious, and she thought I looked like a dead friend of hers so when the Joker came for her, he sprung me too and took me out to Five.”

"What was he like?" Grace asked.

"Big fellow, tiny ears. It always bugged me. He had this little... habit, I guess, where any time he'd see me he'd go off into this little rant. Twinkle twinkle, little Bat, how I wonder where you're at, cross your heart and hope to die, you'll run away to go and cry. It was like he could tell I wouldn't stick around."

“That’s six names, since you didn’t have on with the ghosts,” Dr. D pointed out.

“I have a secret name, one that I chose, and it stays with me always. It’s what kept me who I was I guess.”

It was a split second decision to open up more to them. This was my sister and the closest thing to a god I had. If I couldn’t trust them, who could I trust?

“You’ve been practically everywhere, haven’t you?”