Weapon

by Schow, Ryan

“The things inside you have gobs of personality,” he says, the humor in his voice smoothing out the sharper edges of my rage. Changing tracks, shaking the distraction loose, he says, “The question is, do you want the fullness of your powers?”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “If you knew the powers you could possess, if you understood, you would be wise to be afraid.”

  “Why would I be afraid?”

  “Because everyone who ever had these powers, eventually they ended up destroying themselves and the people around them. Not a one has survived. There is a reason these abilities were not made to be used by your race of beings. This is why the hormone you possess lies dormant in the brains of only a select few humans. You would call it a mutation.”

  “So I was born with this hormone?”

  “No.”

  Then it hits me, and like spitting acid, my mouth ejects his name: “Gerhard.”

  “Yes,” he whispers, the word sounding more like a hiss than an acknowledgement.

  “I want it,” I say. “Turn me on.”

  Right now, with his finger jammed in my nostril, I’m thinking of all the good I can do with the power he has promised to activate in me. If anything, I’d do good to spite Gerhard. Yeah, that’s right. Even with some freakish thing’s finger up my nose telling me people with powers like mine have died, I’m feeling like a motherfreaking idealist.

  “I would prefer to kill you,” he says, very calm, quite lucid. “It needn’t be bloody. It could be like a light switch on a dimmer. I could just turn you off. I would need your permission, of course.”

  “Um, no, I don’t think so.”

  “Then it is as I feared,” he says.

  His blinks his eyes up and down, and then side to side, and with a small concentration of energy being powered into my pituitary gland, it happens. In one bright, outstanding moment, my whole world sucks in and then expands out beyond anything I’ve ever known.

  3

  The space behind my eyes goes nuclear white. My brain becomes the Nevada Proving Grounds where they set off nuclear bombs. It’s Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It’s the shock and awe bombing of Iraq in 2003. Every single nerve is seared, healed, and seared again.

  Somewhere in the midst of this brilliant and ferocious awfulness, I feel the doctor’s finger wiggle out of my nose. And then everything goes still. Like time just stops. I look at the doctor and I don’t see the beautiful man he was. He’s now something so much worse.

  Not human, my mind says. But not alien, either.

  Whatever he is, the answer is there—in my brain—but I can’t process it. And it doesn’t matter. What matters is now I see things differently. The same, but so very, very different.

  My guts squirm inside out, yet my mind devours the information of everything, assimilating it, making it mine, making it real. Imagine not knowing math one minute, then being able to see complex equations—the kind not even the nerdiest, most astute mathematicians claim to understand—and know how to read and interpret them as easily as reading two plus two and knowing it equals four.

  “Those layers you’re seeing and feeling, the insides and the in-betweens of everything, those are called paralayers.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, yet somehow I do. Haven’t I already known this word? Didn’t my mind think it earlier?

  “The device you call an iPod is not the same as a wireless speaker. They are distinctly different, yet both serve a mutual purpose. What mates these two in sound is the Bluetooth connection. You used to be separate from everything around you. Not anymore. You have this Bluetooth-like capability with everything. To you, the world will merely be arrangements of energy. Paralayers. Because you’re able to link up to the paralayers of everything the way your iPod links to various brands of wireless speakers, you’re now capable of interacting with everything on an energetic, paranormal level.”

  “Which means?”

  “You now have control of nearly everything.”

  “I…what?”

  “Watch,” he says, not with his mouth, but with his mind.

  Telepathy? WTF?!

  Using his hands, he directs me to turn and look at the box I was stuffed into. The horrifying truth of that box upsets me. The revulsion of what I’ve survived gushes through my blood. He uses his index finger to close the opened lid from a distance of fifteen feet. The gasp that escapes me is involuntary.

  My brain wants to know how this is possible.

  “It just is,” he says, answering my unspoken question. “This is a normal thing for my kind, but for you it is paranormal. Telekinetics is what your species calls it.”

  “Moving shit with your mind,” I say.

  “You detest that box,” he whispers telepathically.

  “Yes,” I think to him.

  Extending his fingers, all of them, I feel his connection with the box, almost like it’s in my own hand, then I feel the power build within him. It’s an otherworldly intensity that drives power deep from within him all the way up his arm. When the energy pounds itself into his hand, he flexes fast into a fist and the box’s center implodes into a splintered, destroyed mess. My mind is a riot of disbelief and awe, and complete understanding.

  “Open the door to this room,” he says. I move to stand, but he says, “From there.”

  For hours I try using my mind to unlatch the door and open it, and for hours he patiently instructs me on where to draw my power from, how to focus it, how to control it. Eventually I match my energy patterns to those patterns in the latch, and a feeling overcomes me, a sort of oneness with the door.

  “Good,” he says, pleased.

  Thinking about opening the latch, and then the door, finally comes easy. Natural. And then the door is unlatched with a heavy clack! Using my mind, I pull it and it swings wide open. A fierce and emotional wash of impossibility bowls me over.

  I did that. I can do this!

  “Is this a dream?” my mind asks his.

  “You know it isn’t,” he says aloud. “What you are about to do, what is coming next, this will feel more like a nightmare than any dream you’ve ever had.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The other ones inside you, you must let them out, but not yet.”

  I can’t help wondering, is he talking about the thing that calls itself Delta, or the woman? Is he talking about all of them?

  Answering her unspoken question, he says, “You will need more than Delta if you plan to make your escape from this place.”

  “Whatever Delta and the other nut jobs inside me can do, I can do without them.”

  From inside, I feel a tugging, like the drowning man reaching for me, wanting me pulled beneath him. Did the doctor just awaken him? No! I won’t allow him that breath of life! This is my body. My body! Shoving the forces inside me down, using my new powers to hold control, I keep them at bay.

  “Right now it’s their body, too,” he says. “It’s theirs until you can root them out.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “That is a mystery you must solve, little one. For now, when the pain becomes too bad, when it gets too bloody and the fear overwhelms you, give your body over to Delta. He might very well be the start of your salvation. Or at least a way out of this place.”

  “No,” my mouth says.

  My defiance makes me human. I am still human. And this is still my body.

  “It will not be your body for long. Now go, dear. Go.”

  He takes off his lab coat with my misting of spit out blood and hands it to me. I stand and put it on, rolling the sleeves to my wrists. I feel like a child in my father’s suit coat, he’s that big.

  My nakedness now covered, I steal into the hallway.

  Three minutes later, the massacre of dozens begins.

  The Failures of Version 2.0

  1

  She hadn’t said a word to him. Not one. The minute he suggested she not meet Abby, Margaret version 2.0 got really silent. Fortunately for Christian, he und
erstood when she didn’t speak, it was best to leave her be. Now they were in the back of a limousine on the way home from the San Francisco airport and she couldn’t swallow her silence one minute longer. Her sole intention, rather her biggest challenge, was to not be a bitch about the whole thing when what she wanted most was to rake her claws down the face of his soul.

  “So your big solution to this problem of our daughter dying and me no longer being me is don’t introduce me?” she asked in a barely tempered voice. “And here I’ve been giving you credit for being the smart one. Brilliant, Atticus. Totally brilliant.”

  On the plane, she tried shutting down her emotions. In the limo, though, it seemed her brain was now being run by the fastest, most athletic hamster on the wheel. Electrical pulses sparked inside of her new head. She was trying not to see red.

  Too late.

  “Don’t call me Atticus,” Christian mumbled, low and mean. This was the voice he used when warming up for a fight. “Atticus Van Duyn is dead. Wiped off the planet and never to be spoken of again.”

  “Relax, the partition is up,” she said, as if the driver could hear her.

  “This isn’t a game,” he warned her, still low. Judging by the look on his handsome face, he was trying to decide if this was going to be a fight or merely a terse conversation.

  She knew this was no game. The way he was behaving—whisking her off to New York, getting her the transformation and romancing her, then telling her Abby was dead—it was all too much!

  Breathe, she told herself.

  Breathe.

  “Your little silent treatment,” he continued, “I wish we would have bred that out of you. It was always a part of your uglier side.”

  “You cannot breed every undesirable characteristic out of a person, Christian. You’re proof of that.”

  “Perhaps we should have taken more time with you,” he said, ignoring the slam, “and not been so hasty.”

  She rolled her eyes because she couldn’t help it. That was classic Margaret. For a moment, she didn’t realize what she had done, that such a reaction was a holdover from her former self. The moment familiarity set in, however, Margaret v2.0 felt something weighted unlock. The Berlin Wall of her being came crashing down. The claustrophobia of her heart was no more. Is this what freedom feels like? she wondered. New life unfurled within her. Possibilities stretched eternal.

  Like an awakening, she slowly began to understand these feelings as happiness, optimism. This isn’t me, she thought. And yet, it is.

  It is.

  She was thinking she was the same, yet different. And then the thought slid right into her mind: I don’t need him anymore.

  “With all due respect, Christian, I appreciate your role in making me…new, but my life is mine to run no matter how much it cost you.”

  “I know.”

  “Then let me do things my way. Let me succeed or fail on my own, by my own hand, with my own exceptional or ridiculous or utterly senseless ideas.”

  “You’re not the only parent here,” he snapped.

  “Holy shit, Christian,” she whispered, weary and desperate not to fight, “I’m not stupid. I’m not inept.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he retorted. Already she could feel the limo’s cabin going stuffy. A sort of bald nausea washed over her at the thought of Abby being dead, and her and Atticus fighting.

  Christian, she reminded herself. Not Atticus. And not the same as Atticus. Perhaps she had to give him credit for his own changes, not simply demand her let her make hers.

  “Christian, I want you to stop trying to manage my life like I’m twelve,” she said. She felt this inside her, the stirring of an old anger, a shadow of the past taking shape inside her once more.

  “You were never very good at taking care of yourself, no matter how many times you insisted you were.”

  Louder, more forceful, she said, “I’m not your child. I’m not your employee. I don’t work for you. My life is my own.”

  This had him flashing eyes at her. She said a lot of things, but what she never said when they were married was how she really felt, unless she was trashed, then that was all she could say. Margaret v1.0 was good at drinking and snorting coke and exercising her problems away. Then there were all of her pills. Those chalky little solutions to her host of emotional difficulties, pills she refused to swallow into this new body.

  “So what does that mean for Abby?” he challenged.

  “It means I can form my own relationship with her anyway I see fit. Without your guidance or interference.”

  “Oh, really?” he said. “You’re nothing to her, Margaret. An absolute zero. Don’t you get that? And this version of you? For Christ’s sake, you didn’t even exist a few days ago.”

  “Wow,” she recoiled, baffled. “I think I like the other you better.”

  For a second, she thought she could hear dust motes floating through the air. Then he sucked in a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and turned to her and said, “Let’s stop. Right here, we need to stop.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I do. This tact I’ve taken, this isn’t me. I’m not this uptight. And I was wrong to have done this to you, so I’m sorry.”

  This turnaround, this personal revelation, what is this? Besides unfamiliar? “I agree. And thank you for apologizing,” she said, cautious.

  “I want to say one last thing, then I’ll say nothing else.” He paused. She remained silent. “I’m going to trust you, Margaret. I’m going to trust this new you. You’re not your old self, like I’m not my old self, so why don’t we start our relationship, rather our partnership, with trust?”

  She was speechless. His trust was the one thing Margaret v1.0 had wiped her dirty feet all over. When she cheated with the novelist from the country club, when she broke Atticus’s heart, and lost her daughter, trust was that fragile thing she thought she would never regain.

  Continuing, he said, “The face and body you so tirelessly perfected was a treasured project you abandoned for a girl who does not love you, a girl who does not like you, a girl who does not know you. The sacrifices you made, giving up your former body, is a screaming reminder that you are no longer a selfish bitch and a terrible mother. No matter the blemishes of the past, I love you, and I want you, and as painful and as vulnerable as this is going to sound, I need you. But this isn’t about me. This is about Abby. And as much as I would love to get right in the middle of things to keep her safe, and to be with you, I give you my word here and now, I won’t.”

  For a long time, she stared at him, awe struck. His eyes shined with sincerity. Did she believe him? She wanted to. If this wasn’t an angle, was it an attempt at decency? Perhaps it was. If this new man who was officially not her husband could somehow take a step back, let her find her own way with Abby, that would be…oh my God…that would be great. It would be amazing! And it would be so very, very attractive.

  As irritated as she had been, her anger was fast burning off. It was strange, the power logic and resignation sometimes had to squash emotion. What a lovely surprise. What a truly acceptable turn of events.

  Smiling warmly, lovingly, she said, “If you fuck this up for me, I swear to Christ, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

  And with that, he finally smiled at her, and it was such a handsome smile.

  “And here I thought you weren’t my type,” he teased.

  “But if you don’t ruin things with me and Abby,” she said, “then maybe we have a chance.”

  When he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, she turned into him, planted one on his lips, and then said, “I’m serious, though. About all this.”

  “You flexed your dick,” he said, letting go of her hand and sighing deeply, half with content and half with something else. “I respect that.”

  “Good,” she said.

  2

  Stalking an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, that is the habituation of a social parasite. Not a disaffected mother. Technicall
y, Margaret v2.0 reasoned, this wasn’t stalking. What she was doing, sane people wouldn’t understand. If apprehended by the police, even the most creative lies wouldn’t pass the stink test. The way she was keeping track of Abby, all she really wanted was that one moment. A way into her life.

  After watching her for the better part of two days, however, Margaret knew she could not do it. She couldn’t be a good mother. Not even with a fresh start. Before, inadequate or unproductive would describe her as a mother and a woman; now the word fake, or even fraudulent, was more fitting. How could she start this new phase of motherhood by being sneaky? Manipulative? She couldn’t. The truth, however, wouldn’t be enough. She knew that. She believed that.

  For the third day in a row, she parked down the street from Christian’s and Abby’s new house in her Bentley. She was waiting for Abby to leave. Hours passed. Not only was she completely famished, she had to pee and her butt ached from the sitting.

  “Stakeouts suck,” she mumbled.

  The first time she followed Abby, and that was two days ago, she did so with the understanding that Abby’s memory was gone. Smoked. At least that’s what Christian said. Needless to say, she was counting on Abby not remembering Margaret drove a Bentley. Here in Palo Alto, Bentley’s were as common as Civics were in L.A. She didn’t exactly blend, but if she staked out this neighborhood in say, a Toyota Camry, the cops would have been dispatched days ago. An hour later, the garage door opened and out poured a gorgeous pearlescent white Audi S5 lowered on rims that weren’t stock.

  “Praise the Lord,” she muttered, “it’s about damn time.”

  She followed Abby’s lowered white Audi into San Francisco. They ended up in a concrete, steel and glass neighborhood where Abby parked and walked into an upscale looking apartment building. By now, the pee was backing up in her throat. She was looking around for a bush. Or a cup.

  Fifteen minutes later, Abby and Netty emerged, not bubbly like girls their age should be. They were more like an old married couple than anything. At least Netty looked well. A bit thin, but stylish. And pretty.