by Curtis Hox
“What?”
“You’re smiling.”
“I smile.” Beasley threw her meaty arms up in mock confusion. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I don’t know what I am, but I don’t like it.” Kimberlee fiddled with her drink, as if it might suddenly fill up all by itself. “If they can help me, I’ll do whatever they want.”
Beasley nodded. “Me too.”
They heard the shouting increase, then creaking hinges. Kimberlee said, “The door’s opening.”
She crawled to her door, cracked it, and peeked down the hall. She saw Mrs. Wellborn standing in the hall looking back in the room, and not pleased.
“The brand will be taken care of, Simone,” Mrs. Wellborn said. “Stop worrying about it. Just stop—”
The door slammed in the Consortium agent’s face.
“Snap!” Kimberlee said. “Simone just said a big screw you to her mother. God, she’s crazy.” Kimberlee peeked again. Mrs. Wellborn was gone. “All clear. Should we?”
Beasley stood over her like a giant who could hold up the world. Again the smile, this one with more wild abandon, as if she might enjoy getting caught. Beasley stepped over and pushed open the door. “Time for some more girl talk.”
* * *
“She wants me to be like her.”
Simone threw herself face down on her bed. Her pillow was soaked, and her sheets all crumpled, and she knew she looked like a mess, but she didn’t care. She had put her long-sleeved shirt back on to cover the horrible brand on her chest. It itched, and made her feel like dying. She groaned again.
Her bucky was in the far corner, where she’d left it. It hadn’t worked since she’d gotten back. Not with this mark of the beast on my chest.
“My life is ruined,” Simone said. She sat up and faced her friends. “You two are drunk. Oh my god, you’re really drunk.”
Kimberlee shook her head. “Not that much. You want some? I can go get it.” She looked at Beasley, who was grinning. “I think she left a little in the bottle.”
“I want answers,” Simone replied.
“You got your ass kicked,” Beasley said. “By a real RAI. That was scary.”
Kimberlee cut in. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She realized she was unraveling, right here, right in front of them. If she didn’t salvage herself, word would spread around school the new girl was a crybaby. “I mean ... my mom says I am.” She pulled down the collar of her shirt. “I got branded.”
“You did,” Beasley said, leaning in to see.
Kimberlee knelt by the bed. “Does it hurt?”
“Itches.”
“You’re done for now,” Beasley said.
Kimberlee and Simone both shot her evil looks.
Kimberlee crossed her arms. “There must be something—”
“My mom says it’ll fade. It’s just a beacon. They’re coming for me.”
“Coming for you?” Kimberlee replied, casting Beasley a glance to keep quiet. “That’s not good news.”
“Without my lords ... ” Simone fell back down, eyes closed, and beat her mattress like it mattered.
Neither Beasley nor Kimberlee asked about her lords. They obviously both knew illegal talk when they heard it. Worshipping an RAI would land you in jail, and you’d probably never return. Her lords weren’t that different from Rogues to most people. They could make the distinction.
“I heard about a guy who slaved himself to a Rogue,” Beasley said. “After getting him to fill his house with all sorts of chemicals, it turned him into a freakin’ ball that rolled down the street into traffic. He exploded.”
Kimberlee interrupted. “I think we all heard about that—”
“Did you hear about the house?” Beasley asked. “Took out an entire block when it exploded.” Her genial mood had disappeared at mention of the Rogue attack. She pointed at Simone. “If your mother thinks that brand will help you kick your false lords, then I’m all for it, unless it does something worse. You better be too, Sister, because it’s definitely real.” Neither girl said anything as the pressure in the room increased. “One more thing. Stay away from me, until it’s gone. It makes me uncomfortable.”
Beasley moved quicker than they thought possible, and left.
“Was she about to turn?” Kimberlee asked.
Simone put her face in her hands. “See what I am now? I’m like Joss. I’m a—”
Kimberlee put her finger to her friend’s lips. “No more bad words.”
Simone turned away and pitied herself for being Skippard and Yancey Wellborn’s daughter. She had always known it would come to this confrontation. Hadn’t she? She’d been the center of their family since she was a young child. She couldn’t remember a time when everyone around her didn’t stare down at her with wide eyes and welcoming smiles and the encouragement that she could do anything in the world she wanted.
The father she’d barely known had been loving, she remembered. She missed him, although she had stopped thinking about him every day and stopped asking what had happened to him a long time ago. She’d seen the relief in her mother’s eyes and her brother’s that the questions had diminished. Daddy was gone. No explanation. No grave to visit. Just silence. But Simone wasn’t good at silence and had continued to challenge her mother about it. The real fights, though, had come when her mother returned from her job overseas, and would say nothing. Simone now knew these were real missions with real cy-warriors in real battles with Rogues. That was when her mother stopped encouraging her to trust in her lords. That was when she turned away from the true light. And the rift between mother and daughter only widened each year of her life. She couldn’t fault her father, who just never came home one day. But her mother ...
Simone felt another bout of tears coming and forced them back so that Kimberlee wouldn’t try to comfort her. Kimberlee sat in a chair, watching. Simone wanted to be left alone to pout in her moment of defeat, but she said nothing to her new friend. She missed her father more than anything. What could Kimberlee say to help that?
Simone rolled over and faced the wall and bit back her whimpers. She wondered what her father would say, if he could see her now.
* * *
Daddy is the biggest man she remembers. He’s at least seven feet tall and looks like a giant to the young five year old. His remaining son, Rigon—after his oldest, Jonen, died—follows him into the hallway by the stairs in their huge home where they all live together. Rigon has the same build as their father, the same walk, same thick head of hair, and the same can-do attitude, and even though he’s almost twenty years older than her, they’re best friends.
He lifts her off her feet, and swings her round and round a few times.
“My little pest,” Rigon says, “have you been practicing?”
He sets her down and she stumbles about, but grabs his pants to right herself.
Daddy looks like he might return to his lab in the basement to work. He’s in his favorite robe and has just finished breakfast. He’s still munching on a piece of toast.
She knows he is old, but he looks so young.
“She’s up to her third kata,” Daddy said. “Her mother says she’s an expert.”
“That’s great,” Rigon says. “Our little one will rule the world one day, won’t she?”
Both of them beam down at her with all the promise of the Wellborn family.
“Your mother and brother will guide you,” Daddy says, “as I guided them. And we’ll all live together forever. Isn’t that right, Rigon?”
“Sure, Dad.”
Rigon interferes before Daddy can say more by stepping in. He scoops her up and swings her around again. She wants to hear more of Daddy’s ideas, even though everyone always seems to be shushing him, or interrupting, forcing him back to his lab where he works away, hour after hour, on something called the Protocols. Simone doesn’t know what they are but knows they’re important.
“Let’s go see Mom,” Rigon says.
“Sh
e’s workin’ out.”
Mom will soon be leaving for a few months. She’s been hired by Daddy’s company to help with the troubles, but Simone doesn’t understand this, and thinks Mom will just be gone for a short time. Daddy is excited, and so is Rigon, who also works for Daddy, but her mother always acts like she’ll be homesick after a day or so. Simone knows she’ll miss her.
Rigon and Simone find Mom in her space, doing her movements, and speaking her words, making her mind right. To Simone, who has been imitating her since she can remember, her mother is all powerful: the kind of woman all moms should be—except, she sometimes makes Simone practice when all she wants to do is watch TV. Today, Mom is drenched in sweat in a skimpy leotard that shows her boobies and butt, but makes her look like a super athlete you’d see on the shows.
“Dad thinks she’s ready for another kata,” Rigon says.
Simone thinks that sounds more like a question than a statement.
Mom stops her dance and moves to the balance bar up against the mirrored wall. She sets her leg on it and recovers her breath. “She is.”
“Just remember, sweetie,” Rigon says, “if you don’t make it, no biggie.”
“I’ll make it.”
“She’ll make it,” Mom says, then walks over and looks Simone up and down like she might have the mumps. “Why not now, dear?”
Simone claps her hands together. “Yes, yes, yes. I can do it. I can do it.”
Rigon steps away, as if he might leave. But he just crosses his arms, smiling, like he wants to see it. “Go ahead, little one. Show us.”
And Simone moves flawlessly through her mantras until she reaches the plateau of the kata of summoning where body and mind begin its separation. When she breaks through, she feels the lords for the first time. They are massive and magnificent, great beings of light who fill her heart with joy.
“Yes, dear,” her mother says. “These are your guardians: your Lords of Light. Worship them and love them, and they’ll love you back and protect you.”
Simone remembers looking up at her mother with a love that defines the next few years. These are wonderful years as she masters the mantras and katas, until her mother says, “Now you must put your lords aside. You don’t need them anymore. To complete the critical kata of summoning, you need only yourself.” Mother and daughter begin their battle of wills. The true believer and the heretic.
Soon Daddy will be gone, the war will come close to home, and her mother will return from overseas with illegal and dangerous ideas about shedding the body to free the mind. The ultimate source of power. “Besides,” her mother later lets slip, “disembodiment is what your father worked his entire life to achieve, that’s what the Protocols are for, and that’s how I’ll find him.”
* * *
“My mother’s a nightmare,” Simone said. She rolled over and found Kimberlee sitting at her desk chair, thumbing through Simone’s new digital tablet. Rigon had already captured the partial copy of Joss and eradicated it—so no worry there. He’d left a new tablet for her when he’d learned she’d destroyed her other.
“She seems cool enough to me,” Kimberlee said. Simone rolled her eyes. Kimberlee added, “My mom sits at home and drinks all day and yells at my dad.”
“It’s not like that at my house. We’re Wellborns. We do the impossible.”
Kimberlee giggled, obviously still tipsy.
Simone sat up. “What do the others think about what happened?”
Kimberlee set the tablet down and moved to the bed. “Hutto didn’t say much, but he probably liked seeing you taken down a notch. You did come on pretty strong on your first day. Everyone else seemed to feel sorry—”
“—for me?” Simone stood and glared at her friend like it was her fault all the bad things in the world every happened. “God!”
“Take it easy,” Kimberlee said.
Simone paced. “I can’t believe my mom finally did that to me. She’s been promising me it would happen for years. I never believed her.” She saw her bucky and went to it. She looked it over, with a touch of love. “You’re not to blame.” She ran her fingers over its lifeless metal. It had shrunk to the size of a solid marble. “I’m not a joke.”
Kimberlee shook her head. “I know.”
“They don’t,” she said, signaling the entire campus, who must all think she was a wacko.
She’d been limited from fully channeling and summoning for too long because her mother wouldn’t teach her the final mantras and katas. She had to commune with her lords at a distance, always using the bucky, feeling them so close, but never manifested. Even when she would climb out of her bucky and stare at herself in the mirror, seeing the minor changes like the wide eyes and the slightly elongated skull, the extended arms and legs, she knew those were just traces of what her lords were. She always waited an hour or so for herself to return to normal, always wondered what a full transformation would look like.
Simone hated her mother at the moment because she feared her mother was right. “I’m not a joke. I’m just ... incomplete.” She pulled her shirt off. “And I have this.”
The brand had settled into her skin like someone had taken a marker to her. It was smooth, unlike from a heat wound. Hers emerged from the dermis upward, and looked more permanent than any tattoo. The mark was finally beginning to appear without any swelling. She was sure now what the letters were. In clear relief: SWML.
Could it be my father’s initials, she thought, Skippard Wellborn …ML?
Simone stood in front of the mirror and regarded herself. She reached into the desk and pulled out a pair of scissors. Without thinking, she snipped off her left pigtail, then the right.
“Oh my god!” Kimberlee yelled, jumping off the bed. “You-Did-Not-Just-Do-That!”
“My mom always told me I’d never summon my entities until I grew up.”
“What?”
“Fine, then,” Simone said, now facing her friend in just a bra and a baggy pair of pants like some hip-hop dance girl ready to start poppin’. “I’ll do it on my own then.”
“What is summoning?”
“It’s crackin’ psy-sorcery transformation magic that’ll blow your mind.”
“Transformation?” Kimberlee was standing now and looking at the door like maybe she should run for it. Transformation was about the worst thing you could say to her, and Simone knew it.
“Relax,” Simone said. “You’ll be all right ... you’re in the Cybercorps Program.”
“So are you.”
Simone faced her friend but tried to keep her anxiety in check. “My mom wants me to do this on my own. Fine. I’ll show everyone what I am. The Sterling School won’t know what hit them.” By now Kimberlee was edging her way to the door. “Maybe it’s better if you leave. I’m feeling … dangerous right now.”
Kimberlee drew on some hidden reservoir of strength. “Maybe the Program is a good thing.”
“Without my lords, I’m lost. When they don’t talk to me I feel awful.” Simone shook her head. “My mother offers me only self-reliance.”
Kimberlee perked up. “How can that be bad?”
“What happens when you’re not strong enough to be self-reliant?”
“I gotta go.” Kimberlee glanced one last time before stepping out and shutting the door behind her. “Take it easy, will you?”
Simone felt all her indignation and resistance crumble after her friend left. She returned to bed and sat against the wall with her knees under her chin, her bottom lip trembling. Her mother was just down a path at faculty housing in a humble but comfortable bungalow kept just for her. Her mother was waiting—she’d said so. She’d be available at any time in the night, if her daughter wanted to come to her. They both knew what that meant. The critical final steps to the kata of summoning awaited, but Simone was angry she would have to do it without her lords. That was the requirement: complete independence. Her mother wanted her to make the attempt, and do it right away.
“So that we can fight
the brand’s makers,” she’d said. “And we will have to fight them.”
“You mean I will?”
“We will.”
But her mother had left without any advice, direction, or sympathy for what was to come. Simone knew why: Her mother believed the threshold that Simone had to cross had to be done alone, with no guidance, otherwise it would not work.
You want independence, she thought. I’ll show you.
Simone started by kicking off her baggy pants. She examined herself in the mirror in only her bra and panties. Damn, she hated the fact she looked just like her mother, and now with the shorter hair, they were nearly identical: medium height, solid athletic build with firm breasts, enough of a curve in the waist to suggest hips, and enough ass she knew boys always looked when she wore shorts. She stood on her toes and checked out her backside. Yep, that’s why they always looked. She was happiest with the shape of her legs: lean, solid, strong. She sniffed under her arms and didn’t smell bad enough for a shower.
A few powders here, a few shots of perfume there, and she threw on her favorite little black dress. She had a pair of pumps she loved, but never wore, and put these on.
She smiled at herself and went fishing for some lipstick. She had that on in under a minute. She ruffled her short hair so that it stuck out at all angles and gave herself a delicious smile she knew confused most guys.
Perfect.
She picked up her tablet and sent Hutto a direct message: I need to talk to you, now. Meet me out back by the swing sets.
* * *
The swing sets were at the end of a short, winding path of mulch behind the dorms. They were hidden in shadows formed under a few hickories. Their creaking branches blew in the night wind, causing enough sound to muffle any noise. Hutto came creeping down the trail but paused when he saw Simone. She said she wanted to meet him and that it was urgent. What else could he do but hurry?
“Surprise surprise,” he said when her swing brought her into the moonlight. “You cut your hair … and you look hot.”
“I hate my mom.”
Hutto laughed. “You’ve got issues, I guess.”
“You have no idea.”
“What’s with the dress and heels?”