Rupture

by Curtis Hox

  “Lords of Light and Goodness and Right and Order,” she said, “hear my call, and show yourselves to your servant in her moment of need.”

  The seconds that ticked by while she waited were the longest of her life. She said the words again, and waited, each moment her heart growing heavier until it sank into her belly ... and slowed her dance. The calm shattered, and she felt her confidence peel away layer after layer until her bare bones and pulsing organs were exposed.

  “No!” She felt the weight of the Rogues force her to her knees. She heard them laugh. “Mother!”

  But she couldn’t turn her head. The weight of ten atmospheres bore down on her. She could barely breathe. She tried to call her mother’s name again. She couldn’t do it. She fell, plastered to the floor, under an immovable weight. She faced one of the eyes, and it seemed to grow ... and her mind felt as if it would crack open and never be right again. This can’t be right, she thought, where are they? My lords haven’t come again. They’ve abandoned me …

  Mother!

  A bubble of light air surrounded her. The crushing weight of gravity disappeared, and she sat up, under her mother’s legs. Her mother straddled her. Simone grabbed onto one leg as if to a buoy in a storm. A ripple of invisible energy fired from her mother’s hands toward each of the eyes, which exploded like jelly donuts. Her mother scanned the room, almost like a machine that wasn’t ready to relent. Rigon walked over and helped Simone to her feet.

  “You hoping for something more?” he said to their mother. “They’ve announced their presence and their intent.”

  She snapped out of her trance. “Of course not. This was for Simone’s benefit, not theirs.”

  All the students were on the floor as well. Kimberlee was weeping, Hutto’s hands shook, and Beasley had blanched. Wally had crawled into the back of her shirt. His little head popped out.

  Simone found her breath. She let out a slow groan. She looked at her mother and her brother as the tears welled. She new what they had done to her. Her lords had not come ... they had known her lords would not come.

  Her mother leaned in. “Your Lords of Order are just tools, dear. You are the lord of your destiny. Your mind is your tool. You must rely on it. Humanity should not debase itself by worshipping the entities. They worship us. I erred in letting your beliefs go as far as they went. This is a game, one of life and death and one that we should play to win. And we’ll do it with dignity, as masters, not slaves.”

  Rigon couldn’t help himself. “What she means is that in our fight against the RAIs, humanity’s ingenuity is the best offense—”

  “I know what she means.” Simone yanked herself away from both of them. “What she means is that the lords don’t exist. Right, Mom? They can’t exist because you want to be more powerful than them. So they have to be less than they are. You want to rule them.” She stepped away, struggling to retain control of herself but on the verge of an embarrassing display of hysterics. She saw her new friends staring at her. Kimberlee was crying as well. Simone said to everyone, “My mother wants to be a disembodied Altertranshuman.” To her brother, she commanded, “Arrest her.”

  She crossed her arms and waited, knowing what she’d claimed could have her mother executed. Disembodiment was illegal, except for highly regulated Interfacers, like her brother. And the idea of an Alter being disembodied ...

  Yancey stared at her son, eye to eye, willing him to act. “Well, Officer?”

  “Be quiet, Mom; for once just be quiet.”

  FOUR

  ON THAT FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE STERLING SCHOOL, the disruption in the girls’ third-floor dormitory was so loud the RA on duty had to move everyone off the hall, except the two principal combatants and noise makers: Association member Yancey Wellborn and her irate daughter.

  Most of it was screaming about how “you don’t love me,” and “you lied to me about the entities,” and “you never told me about what happened to Daddy.” Simone did most of the screaming. Her voice lasted longer than anyone imagined. The poor RA would later say, “Three full hours of it.”

  By the time Simone’s voice finally cracked, she was a mewling, slobbering mess wrapped up in a blanket, half delirious.

  “Are you done?” Yancey asked.

  “No.”

  Instead of more yelling, Simone resorted to beating her mattress.

  “Stop it,” Yancey said, no longer content to sit in a chair and watch the tantrum. “Stop it now.”

  “You tricked me. You tricked them. Somehow you ruined them.”

  Yancey moved to the bedside in a single leap and stood over her daughter. “Is that what you think? Your Lords of Whatever were tricked? And that they will still save you?”

  “Yes!”

  Yancey ripped the blanket from her hands.

  “Hey!”

  Yancey grabbed a hold of the oversized shirt Simone was now wearing, this one a long-sleeved tee with a local music band on the front. Her mother lifted it and yanked it over her head, struggled with her daughter’s arms, and finally freed it.

  “Look. Look in the mirror.” She helped her daughter to her feet. “Would your lords allow this?”

  Just under Simone’s neck and above her sternum they saw a silver-dollar-sized image of a Rogue brand.

  “I don’t know how that ... ”

  In it was an upside down isosceles triangle whose nadir failed to come to a point. The tip was open in an unsettling display of a broken triangle.

  Simone began to hyperventilate. Inside it, barely perceptible, were four letters. They looked like SWML.

  “Calm down,” her mother said, “it’s not permanent.”

  But Simone acted like she was dying, which increased the adrenaline rushing into her veins, and she passed out, crumpling to the floor.

  Yancey saw a brown McDonald’s bag someone had left in the room and used it to help her daughter breathe properly.

  She soothed her hair back. “It’ll fade. They all fade.” As her daughter’s eyes focused, she whispered, “Your father’s faded ... with a little work. You just have to be strong.”

  * * *

  That night Hutto and Wally sat by the window in Wally’s fifth-floor dorm, looking across the courtyard toward the girl’s wing. The RA had told them all the racket was coming from the new girl’s room. They could clearly see movement through the half-open blinds. Simone seemed to be sitting on her bed, flailing her arms every few seconds.

  “Cat fight,” Hutto said. “Mom against daughter. God, I wish I could see that.”

  “Mom would win,” Wally said.

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Hutto had knocked on Wally’s door hours ago and only planned to stay a few minutes. Hutto was surprised at how cool his room was. Someone had made a fortress for Wally. A miniature wooden ladder led to a loft with railings and several interior structures. Wally had an apartment within an apartment. Hutto could see several cushions, a bed, a mini-fridge. He even had windows and low-energy light bulbs in there.

  “Home away from home,” Wally said.

  He’d created a secondary platform under the top of the loft so that he could sit eye-to-eye with any guests. A comfy, regular-sized loveseat meant anyone sitting would actually be a bit lower than him.

  Wally couldn’t decide what he liked better: Hutto or the cat fight. He kept flitting his eyes back and forth. He had the finest specimen of masculinity right in front of him, a young man bred to fight, to become a warrior hero. Beasley was great and all, and his very best friend; she’d tear down heaven for him. But she was withdrawn, sullen six days out of seven, and damn near impossible to cheer up when she decided a funk was in order. Hutto, on the other hand, always had a smile, a joke, and a story to tell.

  “Did you see her mom tonight?” Hutto asked.

  Wally nodded vigorously. He let his legs hang from the platform under his loft. A foam cushion underneath would catch him if he jumped off (usually he targeted the loveseat). “She kicked their asses.”

  “Yes
she did. Do you have any idea what we saw tonight?”

  Wally did, but he wasn’t sure if he should say. “Psy-sorcery.”

  “Hell, yeah!” Hutto looked like he would have jumped to his feet if he’d had space. “I’ve heard my brother Nisson talk about it. He’s ... been around that stuff.”

  “The Megamech pilot?”

  “That’s Almont.” And then, as if on a side note he’d return to later, he said, “Nisson used to glad fight, until he got in trouble.”

  Wally nodded and waited, hoping for more info on Hutto’s infamous brother who’d been banned from glad fighting. Everyone had wondered when Hutto would bring him up.

  “The psy-sorcerers are one big fuckin’ mystery, man,” Hutto said. “What do you know?”

  Wally knew enough not to speculate. The fanboys could go on for hours about who was the most powerful Consortium agents: the original cy-warriors, Cybertranshuman Interfacers like Rigon Wellborn who used the vast resources of parallel processing computing systems, the same ones the SAIs used, to surf Cyberspace as disembodied persons; or the new psy-sorcerers, psychic Altertranshumans like them who somehow used their minds and bodies as weapons that channeled and summoned strange powers called entities. “The son versus the mother—”

  “They’re both Wellborns.”

  Wally knew who the Association Council members were, of course, but he didn’t correct Hutto. “What a family.”

  “Reminds me of mine.” Hutto leaned forward after catching more movement in the far window. “They’re really going at it. Looks like her mom is yelling back now. Listen.” They could both hear the yelling, nothing distinct, just enough edge to be of interest.

  “The new girl really messed up,” Wally said.

  “But mom saved the day.” Hutto smiled, while he watched, as if he was hoping he might spy them naked. “And, boy, is mom hot.”

  “She’s natural—”

  “I mean hot in the way she moved. Did you see it? And the way she jumped in and just smashed that evil shit. She could fight in the open leagues.”

  “Not while she’s Consortium—”

  “Just saying. Women like that get me going.”

  “You’re a dog.”

  Hutto leaned back and ran his fingers through his surfer-boy hair. “You have no idea. My dad said I pull more tail than any of my brothers.” Hutto beamed, his face barely scarred, his nose already healed from Beasley’s punch.

  Wally couldn’t help but look at him with open admiration. He was everything Wally wasn’t.

  Hutto saw it. “Shit, man. Sorry. You, uh, never been with a girl, right?” Wally shook his head. “I’m an idiot.” As if he hadn’t just spotlighted Wally’s deficiency, he said, “What about Simone? I bet she’s as hot as her mother under all those clothes.”

  Wally nodded. “She’s scary, though.”

  Hutto nodded as well. “Like her mom.” He edged forward on the loveseat, as if he had a secret to tell. “And what about us? They’ve enlisted us in some secret program. Are we going to learn that stuff?”

  Wally had no idea what they would teach Hutto. “Don’t you have a rage problem?”

  “I got it under control. Only let it out once or twice. Not pretty at all. A kid got killed.” The charm extinguished, replaced by something darker.

  Wally knew about the kid Hutto had accidentally killed. Wally thought about mentioning that fact to Hutto, but he didn’t want Hutto to feel any worse than he did.

  “If I didn’t have this problem,” Hutto said, “I could be with my family, still training. And that kid would still be alive.”

  Wally stammered a few insensible words, but eventually said, “You know, all of us are really supposed to be the same. I don’t know much about it. But some people say the variety of Alters—Channelers, Summoners, Melders, Animators, Ragers, and Pscyheads, and all the rest—just haven’t learned to use their minds properly. I studied this a little because I think I’ve got the mind thing down. It’s my gift.”

  Hutto looked up. “Controlling machines?”

  Wally looked over at the old-fashioned chronometer on a shelf. It was no bigger than a toaster, but he’d lugged it with him to school because it was the first device he’d mastered. “I’ve always been able to do it.”

  “You just command them?”

  “It’s more like becoming them.” The clock hadn’t been wound in years. He never used it for the time. Its gears were so precisely fabricated that moving along them eased his mind. “Pick a time.”

  “Huh?” Hutto scrunched is face up in the eternal mask of the confused. “Like lunchtime?”

  “No,” Wally said with practiced ease. Dealing with guys like Hutto with an intellect package that, apparently, had never expressed in smarts was rare, and Wally knew better than to front an attitude. “Like, on a phone.”

  “Oh, okay. Midnight.”

  Wally stared at the old chronometer inside its wood frame with its two hands and the thousands of moving pieces inside. He dove in.

  What Hutto saw was the little guy stare at the old clock. But the prickly sensation along his arms and neck told him Wally was doing something to it. Hutto rubbed his forearms and mumbled under his breath. He’d felt the same thing in the clinic, as well, and had had about enough of that stuff for the night, although the memory of Simone’s mom in that super-hot silver Bodyglove caused another sort of excitement.

  He forgot her when he saw the hands on the clock move. They began winding forward, clicking through the minutes and the hours, faster and faster. He could barely see Wally’s eyes, but he saw them staring wide open at the thing.

  “Oh, fuck, more freaky shit at Sterling.”

  The hands stopped at twelve o’clock.

  Wally turned, smiling, as if he’d just knocked a guy out with a clean cross.

  “Aren’t you full of surprises?” Hutto said. He returned to the edge of his seat, the expected enthusiasm bursting again. “I got a trick I can teach you. You know how to unhook a bra strap?”

  * * *

  While Hutto detailed the finer intricacies of one-handed bra strap removal to a fascinated Wally, Kimberlee and Beasley sat together a few rooms down from the fight, unable to stop eavesdropping.

  Kimberlee’s room looked like your typical high-school girl’s, every inch of her walls plastered with symbols of popular culture from entertainers to athletes, and even intellectuals, to corporate brands. Kimberlee loved uploading hip advertisements and making collages. One of her favorites was digital Stoli bottles with the different designs; she probably had fifty of those on her wall, all of them scrolling through their animations.

  She and Beasley sat on the floor, sharing a bottle of Boons Farm wine in biodegradable plastic cups. Kimberlee had snuck it in last weekend after a trip home.

  Beasley was on her third cup—Kimberly had noted that it was over half the bottle!—and was finally starting to smile. Kimberlee realized that was the first time she’d ever seen the girl without a grimace on her face.

  “Poor Simone,” Kimberlee said.

  Beasley nodded. “She got beat down by an RAI. How many people can say that?”

  “She looked broken.”

  Beasley took another sip. “Just heartbroken. If she’s a fighter, she’ll recover. If not ... ”

  Both girls knew that people branded by RAIs became Rogueslaves, or worse, time bombs. What happened to Joss was the result of a direct attack and nano infection. Becoming a Rogueslave took longer, but the end result was the same: You became a host, a tool, whatever your new master wanted. They hadn’t wanted Joss beyond using him to make the fabricator, so word was his brands were gone and the infection dissipating. But what did they want with Simone?

  “Is she branded, do you think?” Kimberlee asked

  “How would I know? I don’t mess with that stuff.” Beasley finished her cup and grabbed the bottle. She took a gulp. “If I can’t wrap my hands around it, I stay away from it.”

  “Me, too,” Kimberlee heard
herself say, then put her hand to her mouth, giggling.

  “What?” Beasley asked.

  “I’m naughty. Do you think by being chosen to come to Sterling, to enter this program, to ... become someone special, that our curses may be gifts?”

  The slightest tension in Beasley’s jaw made Kimberlee pause. She had heard about Beasley’s problem, as had everyone, but never wanted to see it. She’d even heard about Beasley tossing Coach Buzz through a window when he was still in full gladiator shape.

  “I have no idea how my problem can be of use to anyone.” Beasley set the bottle down and pretended to be listening to the muffled shouts, curses, and threats coming from down the hall. “The new girl sure isn’t happy about what her mother did.”

  Beasley Gardner realized she was feeling a little tipsy. She usually didn’t drink because, well, drinking and raging went hand-in-hand, and she was an officially classified Rager, according to the Consortium psychiatrists who’d evaluated her. They seemed to have names for everyone. Her dossier read Unexplained Induced Rage Disorder. That was better than hearing Incredible Hulkess in the halls of Sterling.

  When she looked at diminutive Kimberlee Newkirk sitting across from her, chatting like Beasley was one of the girls, she didn’t know what else to do but fidget. She hated feeling uncomfortable, and hated feeling vulnerable even worse. She sensed Kimberlee was going to ask her to talk about it. Beasley knew only one way, forward, and so asked, “So what is a Succubus, anyway?”

  Kimberlee coughed, spilling the wine on the carpet. For a moment it looked like both girls would sit there, eternally frozen, until Kimberlee laughed a little. “Christ, Beasley, why don’t you just come out and say it next time? ‘Hey, Kimberlee, have you ever killed a guy while kissing him?’ Or, ‘Hey, Kimberlee, is it true your tongue is three feet long?’”

  Beasley grinned a big grin.

  “Look at you,” Kimberlee said.