They Tell Me I'm The Bad Guy

by R. D. Harless

  My headache rocketed to new levels of pain from doing it, but I still managed to smile as I said, "Ha ha. Fuck you, Bob."

  Bob clenched and unclenched Meghar's fingers. His breathing sped up, and another notebook from the overcrowded table flipped end over end into his hands. His head went down to the pages while he kept me pressed to the concrete floor with his thoughts. He mumbled as he read with a crazy homeless person's intensity: "Martin Skinner dash height colon five feet, eleven inches dash weight colon one-hundred eighty-two pounds parentheses naked end parentheses dash eyes colon brown dash length three point six two inches slash five point nine four inches dash--"

  "That make you feel better, Rain Man?" My head spun.

  "Prescription colon Mydol parentheses two-hundred milligrams end parentheses comma Benzyne parentheses twenty ceecee's end parentheses comma type three cocaine parentheses one hundred milligrams slash one hundred eighty minutes comma--"

  "You beat off thinking about what you did to people, is that it?"

  Bob's pretend sanity returned, and he used Meghar's mind to hurl me up off the floor until I hit the back wall of the building. The notebook closed up and went back to its place on the table.

  "What you just did," he said slowly, "You stupid cocksucker, was shut down every monitoring device in place to keep the EM field stable. Silvy is using the monitors and a comatose Iranian boy's abilities to shape and contain the field. Now she's flying blind and guessing at what she's doing, and the EM generator is still going. You didn't stop it, and you can't stop it or who know what will happen."

  The room looked like it was getting brighter. A thought from Bob closed around my throat like a steel clamp and pulled me to him. My feet dragged across the farmhouse table, and he rose to a good six feet off the ground and brought me up to him, just below eye level so he could still look down on me.

  "Silvy," he said, "I'm pushing the output. Just do your best." His glassy eyes fell on me, and he squeezed my neck tighter. "You'd better sit there and do nothing. If Silvy warps the Earth's EM field, a solar wind or a CME could get through and make planetary contact and wipe us out. A monopole or a dipole are very real threats as well; I don't know what the fuck you've done as far as damage."

  He pulled me so close to his face I could smell the sweet coffee on Meghar's breath. But I couldn't talk with the grip on my throat.

  "We're doing this together," he said. "It's happening. I can observe the waveforms, nothing's static anymore. We're the winners. Take the damn win."

  I struggled in his telekinetic grip, mouthing that I needed to talk. I loaded a thought at the back of my head like a bullet in the chamber.

  Bob shook Meghar's head. "No. I don't care what you have to say. Be in this moment with me."

  Fuck it, no saying one clever last thing to him.

  I just mouthed, "Fuck. You," and fired that loaded thought right at him, jamming a flash of heat that could warp an aircraft carrier's turbines right into Ibn Meghar, center mass.

  He jerked and fell backward to the floor, me along with him. Machinery shredded and squealed as his thoughts ran out of control. Wiring whipped across the room. I kept the heat on and spread it to the rest of Meghar's body. The skin on his face bulged; scalding steam erupted from his mouth and nose, even from the corners of his eyes. Tissue from his liquefying organs frothed on his lips.

  We were all two-thirds water, but nobody ever seemed to fucking remember that. And no matter how leadskinned or badass somebody was, water always boiled.

  Meghar spasmed on the floor while his robes caught fire. His grip on me released, and I coughed on the gasoline-flavored air that rushed back into my lungs. I turned up the heat until I was sure he was dead.

  Meghar's body sizzled and stopped twitching, but nothing else stopped. I could feel the fillings moving in my teeth. Random shit around the room jetted by like fucking Poltergeist. The generator was still kicking.

  "Fucking awesome, Donnie," I said through gritted teeth on all fours on the floor, barely able to move, my nose full of the smell of burning flesh. I had graduated from the murder of a national hero to the murder of a worldwide savior with exactly jack and shit to show for it.

  It felt like six vodka hangovers had hit me at once, like every piece of me wanted to collapse into itself with my brain trying to go first. Like every other Friday night, I tried to talk myself out of the dizziness and nausea. All I had to do was get out and get a cop and tell them about Silvy and the generator so somebody could fucking stop it. Easy. Just had to keep breathing steady breaths.

  The floor turned cold under me. The glass reservoir of the absinthe dispenser cracked and broke; the liquid inside had frozen into a solid block of ice. Licks of fire appeared and disappeared in the air like fireflies while machinery glowed red-hot.

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," I said the words like they would give me some kind of control over anything that was happening.

  "Silvy, stop!" I shouted, knowing she couldn't hear me.

  "Bob, are you still alive?" I asked desperately. No answer.

  I shouted Tracey's name over and over, hoping she would wake up and come.

  But I was alone.

  I crawled away from the center of the room by inches back to the door to the offices. I told myself Silvy would take control of somebody and send them in to shut it off. She would. I wasn't touching the fucking thing with my power and making shit worse. A gas generator housing became suddenly magnetized and drew shit from all over the room to it before it all fell off a minute later. The hanging lights overhead were all pulled toward the center of the room. The light from them was so bright. I blew out all the bulbs but one, and doing that spiked my migraine into orbit.

  I shut my eyes, but the light wouldn't go away. It pierced through my eyelids and shrank to a small white in a solid blue brightness. I heard part of the roof collapse, but couldn't do anything about it. It sounded far away. The tiny white light expanded while the blue faded to a dull grey that went yellow with the smell of sand from the desert outside entering my nose and the sound of rolling explosions in my ears. On my knees, I slammed my forehead on the concrete twice just to handle the pain, to make it go away for a second. And then came red fire where the yellow light had been. I saw fire, burning hot, filling a horizon that went on forever. A yellow in the flame and a green underscoring it drew my attention but couldn't sway me from the flame. The look of it. The warmth.

  I opened my eyes with a "Holy shit!" realizing I had lost control and set everything around me ablaze. Fire circled me, hot as hell. I squelched what I could and kicked across the floor away from what I couldn't. The fire burned wildly behind me and threw twisted shadows of the melted hardware onto the wall. The shadows moved along with every movement of my flames. Light from the dimmed sun above spilled in through the collapsed roof, but it couldn't wash away the twisted shadows. I raised my throbbing head and stared at the pale sun that couldn't make me look away. Then I got back to crawling.

  Inch by inch, I pulled myself on my belly back to the hallway door, feeling my way through the maze of equipment, smearing the chalk lines on my stomach. I pushed whatever I had to out of the way. The fire sputtered and died behind me. The metal walls vibrated like a metal hummingbird's wings. The noise of it was excruciating. Short breaths kept everything from overwhelming me.

  In the hallway, I kicked the door shut. Warning signs fell off and hit the floor. I made it up to my hands and knees and threw up, then pulled up to my feet on the door knob of Tracey's room. I pushed the door open to hide in there. I just needed to get my shit together for a couple of minutes. Nothing had changed since I had left her. Except the lights were on now.

  Chapter 24

  Tracey and Me

  I locked the door to the room. Everything out on the work floor slowed and went quiet, and the headache started to pass. I leaned against the chest of drawers to get my breath back. Those nanites were bound to be working on Tracey now. I just needed to wait a few minutes.

&
nbsp; Holy shit. I had killed Ibn Meghar.

  "What the fuck did you do?" I asked myself. "Jesus, fuck, man. That was all you came up with?"

  I had killed one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. Yeah, plenty of people hated the guy as an anti-American, anti-Western jackass, but they knew his fucking face and still could get behind him fucking up cannibal guerillas and saving lives and shit. They would broadcast my fucking face in every language in every country looking for me. Where the fuck was I gonna go to lay low from that shit? And with them saying I played a part in Agent Red's death too, just fuck me, man. There was no getting away from that bullshit.

  "Trace," I said. She still hadn't woken up.

  I wiped off the blood I had smeared on her face and pulled at the gray tape around her head. It had hardened and dried and only came off with a lot of effort. I was lucky she was unconscious for it because the shit was really on there, and I had to do some yanking that involved probably more hair than necessary coming out. Underneath the tape, her left eye was bruised and swollen shut.

  I used the knife I had found earlier to cut the rest of the tape off. The pink t-shirt she had on said, 'Post-Humanly Sexy.' It had stains all over it.

  Even with me doing all that she hadn't wake up. The cops would be swarming the place any minute. As soon as she woke up, she would be gone in a hiss. So what the fuck was I waiting around for? A few hours of freedom before every cop on Earth tracked me down and fought over who got to cap me?

  If Tracey wasn't gonna help me, if her help was no use to me, this was the only chance I had to get some payback for Will; while she was out of it. Jurgen Chaotischer would have told me this was the time to strike, while she was weak. He was a shit head, though.

  I had the knife in my hand.

  "Fuck."

  I set the it down with a clatter and shook Tracey's shoulder. "You would take this away from me too, Trace. Wake the fuck up."

  Her eyes blinked, and I had to catch her from falling out the chair.

  "I can't feel my legs," she barely said.

  I propped her back up. "They're there, don't worry. They're probably numb from sitting for so long. Just kinda move 'em around and get the blood flowing. Be careful of your ass, though."

  She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at me, squinting in the light. "Why can't I shift out of here?"

  "What? You can't?"

  "No." Panic went across her face. "Why can't I?"

  I kicked up a fireball with no problem. "I don't know. Maybe the electromagnetic field played with your head. It was supposed to tap into Posters or some shit. Just settle down. Do you know where you are?"

  "Yes," she quickly answered, agitated. "Why can't I fucking shift out of this room? And can you turn the lights off or something?"

  I melted the filaments in all but a couple of the lights to dim the room. "There. That's better. Just calm down. Just breathe. Relax. Are you sure you can't 'port?"

  She rolled her one unblackened eye. "Yes, I'm sure. What the hell's going on?"

  I reached for Tracey's hand. "Come on, let's get you outside. Let's get out of this room."

  She pulled her hand away. "No, I'm not going anywhere. I just want to sit here until I can shift again. Why do you want me to go outside so bad?" she asked me accusingly. "What the fuck is going on?"

  "Nothing," I lied. "It's not healthy in here. You need a doctor or something, Trace."

  "A doctor? Don, they won't let me leave! Are you out of your mind?"

  "They're taken care of."

  "Oh, my God. What did you do?" she said angrily.

  "Hey, don't get that tone. Stop it. I just saved you. And that fucker Duck is dead, by the way."

  "Who is Duck?"

  "Nevermind. This whole fucking thing has been really fucking hard on me. Let's just get you outside and get you to a doctor."

  She lifted up her shirt to show me the scabbed-over knife slashes on her stomach. "Oh, I'm sorry it's been so hard for you, Don. I've just been tortured here for days when they didn't have Sylvie controlling me. How have they mistreated you?"

  "Christ, Tracey. Come on."

  "No, that's traumatizing, knowing she used me and, and, invaded me like that."

  I gave her a shitty look. "Yeah, I know because you had her control me to get me to go along with the bunker thing. Remember that?"

  "That's not the fucking same and you know it."

  The knife on the table caught her eye, and she lingered on it, wasting time trying to teleport it into her hand instead of reaching out to grab it.

  I slapped it away and stepped between her and where it landed. "Sucks not getting everything you want when you want it, doesn't it?"

  Her hands went white-knuckled around the arms of the chair. The hate coming off of her was almost as physical as the heat coming off me. "You are an evil, heartless son of a bitch, and I hate you. Look at what they--"

  I cut her shit off and shouted over her. "I told you not to contact Will, and now he's dead." I felt small saying it because she was in nine kinds of fucked-up shape, but she wasn't getting out of hearing it, no matter what she had been through. She always got to say her piece and teleport away without having to listen to anybody. If she was stuck, she was damn well gonna listen to every fucking word I had to say.

  "Oh my God," she screamed, trying to lift herself out of the chair but failing. "Fuck you! I've gone through all this and you're still going to bitch at me about that? I'm fucking sorry! All right?! I'm sorry. Leave me the fuck alone!"

  "Would you shut up before I smack the shit out of you?!" I yelled at her. "Plan A was burning your ass alive, plan B was using you to get out of here and then maybe burning your ass alive, so shut up and be grateful I'm just bitching at you. Fuck."

  Tracey struggled to get comfortable in the chair and kind of rocked back and forth, shaking her head. "You need to leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you or hear any more of your shit. If you're still here when I can shift again, you better fucking kill me."

  I stepped up and got in her face. "Well, you're gonna hear it. You think you can do whatever the fuck you want and not--"

  She actually shut her eyes and covered her ears with her hands, singing loudly and off-key to drown me out. A lifetime of running away from any confrontation and using her powers on anybody threatening her had left her this way: a petty, immature, shallow little girl that never grew up. This was the stone-cold bitch we were afraid of, that the SCEIA spent millions hunting down.

  "Tracey, listen to me--"

  She screamed for help as loud as she could.

  I grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from her ears. She got a leg up and kicked me as hard as she could.

  "You got Will killed!" I roared in her ear. "And you killed Agent Red! And you killed Rory."

  She kept screaming.

  "And you don't give a shit about any of them. Stop screaming."

  She managed to get louder and kept kicking me.

  I finally let her go. "Fuck, Tracey."

  She stopped screaming when I backed off. Her eyes were like a wild animal. "Will practically came through the phone when I called him with that job. He blew up my voicemail calling me about it afterward. He couldn't wait to do it. So, sweetheart, don't blame me because your butt-buddy didn't want the boring life you did. He didn't even tell you I called him, so how good'a friends were you, really?"

  I had to take a deep breath because my thoughts were on the verge of unintentionally burning her alive. "Tracey. I told you to leave him alone. I knew he'd take the job, that's why the fuck I told you not to contact him. And you did it anyway, like you always do."

  She rolled her eye. "Oh, fuck you, Don. Just like always, you're right, huh? You're always fucking right, aren't you? Like a fucking saint. I bet he just loved you telling him what to do all the time, too. I'm sure you made him feel like your equal while you manipulated him and talked down to him to try and get him to do what you thought he should do. I'm sure he loved th
at."

  Fuck, I needed a fucking cigarette. I found a pack sitting on the rolling table. My brand. Thank you, Jesus. I snatched it up and slapped it against my palm. "Y'know what, fuck all this. You're going into custody, T. Cops are all over the place outside, and we're gonna surrender to 'em."

  She sat upright in the chair. "Oh, my God, There's cops?" she gasped. "Oh, lawd, what will we do? Protect me, Don. I'm just a stupid little girl who can't do anything for herself. It's not like I'm a fucking teleporter or anything." Then she sighed and blew me off like it didn't matter. "Fuck you, asshole. Fucking fine. My powers will come back, and I'll be out of custody anyway. You want to waste your time bringing me in, and, by the way, get yourself arrested in the process, then you're a dumber motherfucker than I thought you were. I'll be home by tomorrow. I know a healer who can fix what they did to me, then I'm taking a vacation in the Maldives for two weeks, then it's back to work."

  She did it just to push my goddamn buttons. She always knew how to and loved the fuck out of doing it.

  I pried open the pack's foil with my finger and smelled the tobacco. Like Heaven. "I left your ass in the apartment of some Indian girl I banged," I told her. "They gave it to me and I just forgot it."

  Two people could push buttons.

  "Whatever," she said, trying not to show she was pissed but turning red with anger.

  "What if your shifting doesn't come back?" I asked her.

  "Then I guess I'll get a job at a fucking factory. That's what you'd like so I can be like you, right?"

  I put one of the cigarettes in my lips and lit it. "You're going into custody. I think the time will help you reflect on some things in your life."