Soul Hunter

by Drew Briney

  Last time I gambled with altering Vaya Sage’s memories, the fragmenting ended in a nastier mess than I estimated and landed me in this new body. Annoyingly, memory alterations are delicate with more intelligent people. Had he been dumb or simply below average in intelligence, everything would have gone smoothly.

  Sure, I could have lowered his intelligence beforehand, I know. At first blush, that sounds like an easy compromise but an effective assassin needs to be clever and thoughtful so I took a gamble. I needed top tier political insurgents quickly out of my way. In retrospect, I may have underestimated his IQ.

  I’ve been guilty of that before. At my age, I should know better but it’s sort of a habit, the kind of habit that develops when you’re too clever for your own good and easily bored. True, I could use my AI chip to analyze people better and to accurately determine their intellectual prowess before making assumptions based upon a mere handful of data points, but like I said, I tend to be lazy. And the AI uses my brain power and that burns calories. I’d rather burn my calories pursuing more pleasurable activities and the fates know, I get far too few of those already.

  Besides, it takes six months to a year to adjust to a new body so you have to exercise considerable restraint not to overtax it. That’s why I enjoy our strolls along the beach and my current, simple lifestyle. That’s also one of the main reasons why I haven’t killed him yet. It’s handy to have a wealthy bodyguard, which brings me to my last reason for not killing him yet: I don’t know where he’s stashed the universal funds he stole from me. When my body is more stable and I find those universal funds and I have the energy to analyze this situation more carefully with my AI chip, I’ll reevaluate the risks of attempting to repair his mind.

  His eyes have wandered again and it’s clear that he’s being deliberate about it. I can’t tell if he’s more interested in mocking, flirting, or aesthetics so I pop a last bite into my mouth, swing my warming leg to the outer edge of the bench and stand up to walk away, gathering my trash as I do. He murmurs something inaudible but I don’t pay attention as I tug on my overly snug bikini bottom and deliberately place my footsteps one in front of another to make my hips sway. I don’t look back at Vaya Sage to monitor his reaction but I’m certain my efforts are not in vain.

  I don’t feel like making small talk. I’ve never been very good at that sort of thing, although Ji Anna has a certain history of exuberant verbosity so I ought to be careful to mimic that habit, but right now, I have a more pressing need: my own mental repairs. When you get a new body, you need to revisit key points of your first life or you start to lose them. Host memories begin to take over and it’s hard sometimes to separate those memories from memories implanted by my AI chip. If I want to take advantage of Ji Anna’s experiences and wisdom while retaining my own identity and the knowledge I’ve gained from previous bodies, I’ll have to review the earliest events I currently remember from each body.

  I only preserved a few from my first body so it never takes too long to review that information and sadly, a few bodies were void of anything beneficial to retain, apart from my own experience, so I don’t review much anything from those lives. Nevertheless, it’s a crucial part of my transition so I begin retracing key moments as I make my way to the beach.

  Vaya Sage is grumbling about something behind me, probably repeating his complaints that I’m being difficult to get along with. He has no idea. I’m trying to be good. It just doesn’t come naturally and it requires grueling attention to detail. For now, I’m feeling a bit lazy and I can tell from my mental meanderings that I need to take better control of my thoughts or I’m going to start losing my earliest memories - and there are a few that are too sacred for me to leave behind.

  I’ll start there first. After that, I need to get Vaya Sage scheduled for that brain scan. For better or worse, that’s the crucial step that determines how this is all going to go down.

  BULLIES

  Street Smart and Intelligent aren’t the Snuggliest Bedfellows

  “A fight, a fight, a brotha and a white. If the white don’t win, we all jump in.” The chant repeated several times before I registered what was happening at the back of the bus. I’d been buried in my thoughts, wondering how this first day in a new school might play out. As soon as I understood the rhythmic mantra, my anxiety doubled and I determined I didn’t like whoever was behind me.

  I hadn’t grown up immune to racism but my hometown in central Washington led me to believe it was all about Hispanics, not blacks. There, Mexican kids fought black kids (usually with knives) and white kids stayed out of the way so I’d never really seen anything more than jabs and jokes. As a nine-year-old kid, that was how I preferred things.

  Despite my natural aversion to violence, I wondered if there was anything I could do to help the black boy behind me so, as the chants continued and even though I was scared to intervene, I slowly turned around to assess the situation.

  To my surprise, everyone was looking at me. Not a single gaze wandered elsewhere and there were no minorities in sight. Well, unless you count redheads. I’d always considered myself a minority as a redhead. Statistically speaking, it’s true. At the time, we were six times rarer than black skin, not that anyone cared. Several rows of white kids were all looking at me (the palest among them) as the chant continued. “A fight, a fight, a brotha and a white. If the white don’t win, we all jump in.”

  One particularly nasty looking boy with long dirty-blond hair, slim features, and piercing eyes miraculously wrinkled his entire face until he resembled an angry pug dog as he stuck a long, gangly finger at me and said, “and you’re the brotha.” I was so utterly confused that my otherwise quick wit failed me entirely. I had no idea what to say, why I’d been picked out, or why anyone would suggest I had black skin - especially when kids regularly reminded me that I was as pale as a mozzarella stick, freckles excepted. I turned back around, said nothing, and contemplated my most promising routes of escape.

  When the bus stopped, I briskly beelined my way to the nearest door. I felt someone pulling on my backpack, trying to keep me from exiting and the traditional rush to the door predictably cut off my path. I shrugged off whoever grabbed my backpack and pushed my way through the crowd with more assertiveness than I knew I had buried inside of me. I felt guilty to rudely press my way in front of other kids even though I felt a sense of urgency because I guessed they were probably unaware of what was happening or why I was cutting in line. After all, no one else had been looking to the back of the bus.

  Or, maybe they were just better at avoiding conflicts than me. Street smart and intelligent aren’t the snuggliest bedfellows. Either way, my efforts failed miserably. As soon as I got off of the bus, there were a couple dozen kids circling me and letting everyone else through so they could go play. School wouldn’t start for another twenty minutes or more depending on how fast mister trusty driver had driven that last stretch of road. Hydraulic brakes squawked as they released to pick up the next load of kids. It was a poor district so he serviced at least two runs each morning.

  The last girl off the bus easily broke through the line of thugs as the beastly vehicle clumsily lurched forward. Passingly, I wondered if adults really cared about the children they were supposed to protect. The driver never looked into the rear view mirror to see my predicament and this wasn’t my first time getting bullied by a couple dozen kids after a bus drop off. This was only the first time for this school.

  It was however the first time anyone had suggested I was black. Not that that detail mattered. My bruises would feel the same afterward, whether they labeled me orange or pink or green. Still, it was an oddity that stuck with me in that first body for many years afterward.

  Smart kids get picked on just as much as any minority but no one ever seems to care. For that matter, I never saw anyone get picked on as much as the smart kids. Maybe no one notices because we’ve been conditioned to talk about racial divides instead of intellectual disharmony. Or, maybe adults assume
we can figure our way out of trouble.

  I envisioned one of the playground guards and imagined myself telling her, “Maybe you should try figuring your way out of trouble next time twenty kids gather around you, tackle you from behind no matter which direction you stand, and then kick, punch, and spit at you while you’re down. Why don’t you see if being a particularly bright nine-year-old helps you then?”

  Of course, daydreaming wasn’t helping so I stopped, tried to focus on the task at hand. Besides, it never mattered how right I was. That’s just one of life’s many injustices - being right rarely makes things better. Charisma attracts power no matter how unintelligent its bearer. Since intelligent people are notoriously less charismatic than their counterparts, their opinions count for less than a dumb charismatic’s opinion most of the time.

  Except in science. That’s why I love science.

  I watched and listened as a growing crowd of children encircled me, murmuring stuff I couldn’t understand. I wondered how things might be different this time around, hoped they might be different in some way that resembled me not hurting too badly.

  Last time I got jumped like this, it hadn’t been so cold. I put my right hand in my pocket, slowly slipped my fingers out of their glove and curled them into a ball to keep warm as I awaited the inevitable. My deformed left arm sagged at my side, seemingly indifferent to my plight. It stopped short of my wrist where it sported flipper-like appendages that didn’t serve well for much anything, let alone punching or smashing heads, one occasion excepted.

  As casually as possible, I looked around to see what was going on. Something seemed different, maybe even odd, but as I surveyed the area, all I could see were enormous piles of snow smashed against the high chainlink fence like some fortified fortress. Huge snow piles were necessary to make room for recess play. Because boundary markings were always snow covered, recesses here universally entailed tackle football over a field of asphalt covered with a few inches of snow and ice. That was only one reminder that kids were tough here, maybe even tougher than back home. Welcome to two years in Gunnison, Colorado.

  Along one side of the snowbank, I could see the opening that led to the main entrance of the school but from my angle, I couldn’t see much besides the kids surrounding me and a few bigger kids rounding a corner toward the main entrance. Most everyone wore large, fluffy coats this time of year so it was difficult to guess who might be the toughest among them. One kid excepted. He was a thick pine tree hovering over the crowd.

  I took a deep breath, noticed my heart beating excitedly, watched my breath fog the air. We could always see our breath this time of year. To be fair, we probably saw it nine months out of the year.

  I shivered from the cold and looked around, waiting for someone to start whatever was going to happen, wondered if there was more waiting for me on the other side of a nearby bank of snow that seemed to jut into the clouds.

  It never occurred to me to try running through the crowd or to start hitting one of the smaller bullies blocking my way to freedom. I’d tried that before and it hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped. I pulled my right hand out of my pocket and zipped my coat up a little higher around my scarf, stuffed the edge deeper underneath my coat. That would provide both a little extra warmth and perhaps, that would keep the extra padding around my neck intact because the coat would hold the scarf in place against my shirt.

  The cold seemed particularly biting that morning but I didn’t pay that too much attention. Gunnison was always cold. Later that summer, in early July, my mom sunbathed outside our home while mini patches of snow snuggled the fence. She didn’t last long - she froze before she could name the nine planets (that was before Pluto was rudely demoted to oversized-rock).

  Without fanfare, my best friend appeared through the crowd. Immediately worried, I told Mike he shouldn’t stay - things looked bad. He cast his eyes down. Someone pushed his shoulder from behind and then someone else forcibly shoved Mike into me so hard that we both nearly tumbled to the ground. Tall for my age, I supported him until he regained his balance.

  “Are they making you fight me?” I asked, nearly certain I’d already figured out this “brotha and white” game.

  Silent, Mike looked to his right and then, receiving shouts of encouragement, he raised his fists to guard position.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I coaxed, placing my right hand back into my pocket. “The two of us—”

  Mike pounded one of his fists into my chest. Between his feeble attempt and my thick coat, I barely felt anything besides hurt feelings and a rising temper. I continued my efforts to persuade him not to fight me but I was never certain he heard much of what I was saying. There were too many shouting voices to allow mine to stick out of the crowd.

  Soon, I lost count of how many times he punched my chest or how many times other kids tackled me from behind or how many kicks I received while I was down. I appreciated his personal restraint in limiting his punches to my heavily insulated coat. Still, I wasn’t overly impressed. He may have been a baby robin encircled by mountain lions but restraint still showed he lacked both the courage and moral superiority to choose the right thing to do. My temper rose accordingly.

  Soon enough, things escalated. He punched me hard in the stomach and then he hit me in the face with his elbow as he closed in. It didn’t hurt badly. Bitter cold can create a sort of numbing effect but I couldn’t say the same for my feelings as he tripped me and pushed me to the ground. I was wearing thin. Whether I’d lost count or not, I was pretty sure that last swing brought the tally to nearly fifty punches, though none landed on my face until the last one.

  I’d continually twisted my torso and moved my feet to keep any blows from falling hard and until then, I’d repeatedly shoved my right hand into my pocket whenever I stood back up from tackling, tripping, or pushing. I had two reasons for doing that.

  First, Mike was my only friend (I’d met him with some neighbor kids since we both lived near school boundaries) and I knew he didn’t really want to fight me, as evidenced by his pansy punches and his refusal to look me in the eye. He was ashamed of what he was doing and I knew it.

  Second, I knew my father would disapprove of me fighting Mike like this. That may sound antiquated to you, maybe even self-righteous, but my father was the epitome of honor and Christian conduct. He taught me every principle necessary to become a great man and he lived a life to make following his lead easy. At nine-years-old, I may have mistaken him for god himself if you’d placed them in a policeman lineup. I admired him and wouldn’t dare do anything to make him disappointed in me. Besides, I knew he would do the right thing if he was in my situation and I was pretty certain that meant he’d do nothing at all.

  None of that kept my temper from rising when someone hit me with what I guessed was a flying knee to my ribs. I fell extra hard and with my face grinding into the snowy ground while someone (or someones) kicked me as I tried to get up. My nine-year-old heart lost resolve. I stood up, backed away from Mike a step or two, and took a deep breath. I must have looked unhappy because the shouting turned into one of those low, excited murmurs that announces things are finally getting interesting. I ignored them all and took my last opportunity to plead with my friend.

  “Look, I know you don’t want to do this but if you keep hitting me, I’m going to have to defend myself,” I announced.

  I was bluffing. Mostly. I thought that would break him, you know? I’d taken quite a bit of damage from the other kids and I was probably looking pretty worn. Besides, I knew Mike. He was a soft kid, full of compassion, and clearly not much of a fighter. He was feeling guilty every time he punched me and probably hoped he’d never have to look me in the eye again. The school bell would ring soon and he was undoubtedly feeling anxious to forget about all of this.

  Or so I thought. Apparently, I slightly miscalculated.

  For some reason I still don’t understand, those last words made Mike angry — or perhaps that’s calling a bubbling volc
ano warm. It pricked something inside of him that was deeper than the reservoir of patience that had been holding me back. He punched me as hard as he could. It didn’t hurt much but that was no longer a factor. The well of anger in his face and the look of disgust he threw my direction were too much to handle gracefully.

  Redheads are known for their tempers, or so I’ve been told, and I came by mine honestly. Flaming red, people said, a warning from god not to mess with this one. I tried really hard not to give credence to those words but I wasn’t as perfect as I wanted to be - especially that day. Before I knew what was happening, I’d pulled my right hand out of my pocket and threw the hardest right cross I could imagine, making certain to push forward with my back leg for extra momentum.

  It landed beautifully. He must’ve looked to his left to see it coming because it landed square on his mouth and the tip of his nose. Mike reeled backward, blood spattering all over his mouth and nose. I saw him showing his lip to someone later. It was all sorts of cut up, both top and bottom and I think one of his teeth went loose. I’m guessing he didn’t have a broken nose or else I would have heard more about that later but based on my own bloody knuckles, I guessed it felt roughly the same as if it had been broken. In retrospect, that doesn’t make a lot of sense but you have to cut a nine-year-old some slack when it comes to deducing details like that.

  At the time, I wasn’t able to observe my handiwork, nor did I have time to see what happened to the crowd of more casual observers. Someone behind me yelled “dog pile” and someone else tackled me from the side. I was claustrophobic then and I’m claustrophobic now. I’ll probably be claustrophobic a hundred bodies from now.