"NO," it said in an echoing voice. It pulled its finger back. "THERE IS POWER IN YOU. POWER TO TAKE THE MIGHT OF THE LOST."
It tilted its head and appeared to ponder her.
"YET YOU WILL NOT DO SO. IN THE END, YOUR POWER WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING."
Heather blew away into the wind, off the rooftop and into the void and was gone.
Some time later, when there was time again, and when there was a 'her' again, she opened new eyes.
______________________
Some time after the rooftop, she found herself wandering down an unknown street. Her feet moved slowly, stiffly, on the concrete, taking her down the street in lurching steps. When she came to the payphone, her hand lifted sluggishly, as though it belonged to someone else. She didn't lift the phone handset from its cradle, just held it, and something inside her head shifted.
"Hello?" Her mother's voice came from somewhere, echoing inside her right ear canal. "Hello?"
At first, she said nothing.
"Heather? Oh God...Heather is that you? Where are you, baby? Please tell me where you are."
"I'm not here," said Heather. "I'm not here at all."
"Oh God, baby where are you? Is it that boy? Are you with Simon? They say he doesn't live there anymore."
"You were right, mom. I am nothing. You were right."
"Oh no, baby. No, no, no..."
Heather released the phone and the sound stopped. She took a few more shambling steps, as the concrete spread up her legs and through her body. Finally, she sank to her knees, hands on her upper thighs, eyes downcast as the concrete washed through her head and over her face. Her eyes were the last to go, hardening in place as she stared at her reflection in a pool on the sidewalk.
Heather saw nothing.
______________________
"This is all your fault!" Simon growled.
"Wha- ME?" Brandon raised his hands. "What did I do?"
"She was in that store you were running! You were keeping her, like some kind of pet! What did you do to her?"
"I didn't-" Brandon let out an exasperated breath. "I didn't know what else to do with her! She was all...like a statue or something. I couldn't just leave her there in the street."
Simon looked down, uncertain.
"And where were you, huh?" Brandon asked. "Oh yeah, right. You were gone."
Simon released him and turned his back.
"You were just gone."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Again and again, Simon swung the baseball bat. Up, and down. Up, and down.
Pieces shattered and flew away. The satisfying sounds of destruction filled his ears. Up, and down. Up, and down. He smashed and smashed, and howled his rage.
He was free.
Simon opened his eyes. The pain was less now, had subsided sometime in the night, and he was able to handle the light more easily. He still was unable to speak, and he still cringed at times from the pain in his skull, but he'd been free of the bandage for a while now and there seemed to be no bleeding or seeping from the place on the back of his head where it had once been.
He sat up and looked about the enclosure for his fellow prisoners. At last he found them, sitting across on one of the platforms they were provided to sit and play during the day. At night, of course, they were herded into cages. Simon preferred the cages, in a way, where he was secure from being pursued and beaten by the big male, who seemed to have a perpetual need to establish dominance.
The big male, called "Azizi" by their handlers, was sunning himself on the platform, being tended to by the two females, whose names Simon did not know or care to know. The one part of Azizi's dominance that he appreciated was the fact that the two females seemed to enjoy fawning over him too much to turn their unwanted attentions in Simon's direction.
The beatings, however, those had to stop.
Above the rocky enclosure wall, and the smooth metal wall beyond that, families stood at the rail and looked down on them, smiling, eating their popcorn and pointing at the prisoners as if their imprisonment was the greatest thing they'd ever seen.
Simon had had just about enough of that, as well.
He stood at the mouth of the little "cave" in the Gorilla Enclosure wall, which had been his home during the daytime. He rarely emerged; to do so was surely to risk arousing Azizi's wrath, but he did so now, drawing himself up to his full height.
That he was bigger now was beyond question. His gorilla form had been growing taller and more muscular, to the point where it was getting difficult to cram himself into his cage at night.
Simon chuffed a bit of air out of the hole where his nose had once been. He did not plan on returning to that cage much longer.
He stepped up to the platform, and bellowed his challenge.
Azizi bolted upright, his head tilted to the left. He looked baffled, Simon thought with a near chuckle. The two females recognized that a fight was about to occur and backed away to the rear corners of the platform, screeching.
When Azizi leapt from the platform to the floor of the enclosure, Simon turned and bolted for his little cave. Azizi was hot on his heels, bellowing his rage. Simon ran to the back of the cave, where just out of sight he had hidden something. It had taken him days to pry away some of the plastic from the back of the cave, twisting it this way and that, wrapping scraps of duct tape he had found here and there in the enclosure as well as the cages they were kept in at night. It had been easy enough to stick the scraps to his fur and then peel them (painfully) away and add them to his little weapon. Finally though, he had it, an instrument he might use to bring down his enemy.
Azizi followed him in without hesitation. Simon leapt over him, bringing the plastic loop around his head and squeezing it tight from behind. He dragged the big gorilla to the ground, wrapping his legs around his waist and holding the plastic loop he had made tight around his neck. Azizi struggled, scrabbling at Simon and the plastic with his great paws, but unable to find purchase. Simon squeezed and waited for him to pass out from lack of oxygen.
"Simon?"
Simon started at the sound of his name, floating down to him from somewhere above. There were several patrons there, looking down at him: the same families he had seen before. Who among these people could recognize him like this?
"It's me, Simon. It's me." The voice might have come from a child, holding a bag of popcorn. "I saw you at the military base. Those doctors, they hurt you, didn't they?"
With a rip, some of the duct tape came free and Azizi wrenched away the plastic loop. Simon turned back to him, but it was too late. The big ape brought down both massive hands on his chest, knocking the wind out of him.
Simon hit the ground hard, and the big gorilla was on him before he could get his breath back. Blow after blow landed on his head.
Two handlers entered the enclosure, holding tranquilizer guns. One of them aimed his rifle at Azizi, the other at Simon. Simon felt the prick of the dart before he realized he had been fired upon. Azizi fell flat on top of him, his head lolling beside Simon's left ear.
As the world dissolved into a gray fog, he could swear he heard Azizi whisper to him in a gravelly voice. "Simon. It's me."
SIMON
"Simon doesn't live here anymore."
Simon reached out with an invisible hand, squeezing its fingers between Heather's faux linoleum surface and the true tile floor beneath. Gradually, he was able to pry her up, scooping her with the hand and cradle her in his arms.
"Heather," he said, as gently as he could through the grating of his non-human throat. "Come back to me. Please."
At first, there was nothing, and then the linoleum body began to shift, to slowly alter its shape. Finally, Heather was herself again, lying in his arms.
"Hello," she said. "Hello, Simon."
He hugged her close. "I thought I'd lost you for a minute."
"You did." She pushed his arms away and stood on her own feet. "You left me on that rooftop, don't you remember?"
_______________
_______
Wind howled around the rooftop, forcing Simon to cover his eyes with one leathery hand. Something was happening. Sparks began to leap from one of them to the next.
"What's going on?" Heather shrieked from beside him
Simon shook his head, and began to respond that he didn't know, but a massive spark burst from his shoulder to hers, knocking them apart.
Lines of energy arced between them now, and then arced into the air above the rooftop. And where they came together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole began to form in the air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks opening in ice, only a million times louder.
______________________
"Hey."
Simon looked up from the science book to see two kids had approached him from the park across the street. He was immediately envious of their clothes: they wore ball caps, shorts and sleeveless Ts. Simon was never allowed to wear those things.
"What?" He closed the book, grateful for the interruption.
"You want to play with us?" The kid who asked was holding a baseball in his hand, a leather glove tucked under his arm. "We need one more."
Simon glanced across the street and saw several other kids standing on the dirt diamond in the park. He had never played the game, but he assumed they needed enough for each team to cover the corners. 'Bases' they called them.
"Ummm..." he looked back toward the house. His father would not let him even watch sports, let alone play one of them. He had been apoplectic when Simon had come home from school one day asking about Little League, something he had heard about from other kids. "I don't know..."
"Come on..." the other kid chimed in. "It'll be fun."
Fun, thought Simon. That sounded good. He looked back down at the book: "WONDERS OF SCIENCE" it said in large, excited letters on the cover. There were planets with rings, and rockets, and other things on the cover that made the book seem a lot more fun than it turned out to be when you started reading it. Simon was currently bogged down in a chapter about electricity and magnetism, things he had little interest in and couldn't figure out. He was, in fact, supposed to meet his new tutor this afternoon, an older boy who was the son of his father's friend.
"I...I guess I can't."
The kid with the baseball tossed it to him unexpectedly. Simon let go of the book to catch it.
"See?" The kid pointed at him. "You can do it."
Simon stood, rubbing his hands around the ball. It felt good there, the way his fingers cupped around it, gripping the ridges of its lacing. "WONDERS OF SCIENCE" lay forgotten in the grass of its lawn, its pages splayed. Simon was running off with the other kids to the park before he really knew what was happening.
"Have you played before?" one kid asked.
Simon shook his head.
"Okay, why don't you take some practice swings?"
The kid handed him a baseball bat. Simon's eyes widened with delight; he had never held one before. His left hand slipped around the handle, his right hand wrapping around it just above.
"You hold it- yeah, like that. You got it."
Simon hefted the bat in his hands, holding it over his shoulder and swinging it forward. He had never felt anything quite like it before. His muscles responded to it, reacted to it, and anticipated its weight and the force of the swing. It was so natural, so perfect.
"Okay," the kid said, "try some pitches."
One kid had taken up a position where the pitchers mound would be (it was only a dirt patch in the middle of the field here). Simon stood next to home base and readied the bat.
The pitcher threw it underhanded, soft and easy. The ball almost floated from the "mound" to home. Simon's body uncoiled like a snake. The bat made contact with the ball with an amazing CRACK! sending the ball sailing into the other side of the park.
The others gasped in amazement.
One kid was sent to fetch the ball, and soon the pitcher was throwing another his way, this time overhand. Again Simon connected, sending the ball flying. A series of pitches were thrown, progressively faster and faster, and time after time Simon felt his body wind up, uncurl and absorb the shock of the hit.
As the ball sailed beyond the diamond and into the other side of the park after the last pitch, Simon felt hands clapping him on the back. All the kids had rushed around him, cheering him on.
In the midst of it all, Simon's face fell. Harold Chu, his father, was approaching across the park, arms chugging like pistons at his sides.
"Oh no." Simon's arms dropped, half-heartedly hiding the bat behind his right leg.
"SIMON!" The boys parted in front of Mr. Chu as he strode up to Simon and grabbed him around the back of the neck. "What do you think you are doing?"
Simon looked down at his feet. "Playing."
A chop of air escaped his father's throat. "I can see that. What are you supposed to be doing?"
Another person had followed his father to the baseball diamond: an older boy, thin, with glasses. Simon suspected he was Aaron, the tutor for whom he had been waiting.
"Studying while I wait."
"That is correct. Why, then, are you instead across the street playing?"
"He's really good," said one kid, trying to defend Simon. "I never seen an Asian kid hit like that."
Mr. Chu rounded on the boy. "Young man, do you know your geography?"
The kid's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
"Very well, I shall instruct you. Asia is a continent."
The boy nodded.
"We do not live on that continent. My family has lived here for quite a long time. I dare say longer than yours. We are American, not Asian."
"Okay," the boy managed.
"Good." Simon's father turned back to him and began dragging him along by the back of his shirt.
As they began to stride away, one of the kids shouted after them, "Wait! Our bat!"
Mr. Chu stopped and let Simon go. "Return the baseball bat, please, Simon."
Simon reluctantly walked back over to them, head lowered, and held out the bat.
"Sorry," he said.
"Now," his father said once the bat had been returned and Simon had come back to him, "you will retrieve your book from where you so carelessly left it."
As Simon picked up "WONDERS OF SCIENCE" off the grass, the older boy awkwardly put out a hand.
"Um, hi. I'm Aaron."
Simon shook his hand.
"Aaron will be helping you with your science experiment," said his father.
Simon's shoulders fell. He had forgotten all about the science experiment he was supposed to start today.
"Can't I work on that tomorrow?" he asked, his head full of the crack of the bat.
His father emitted another short chop of air. "I don't know what has gotten into you, Simon, I really don't."
______________________
"Simon, can you hear me?"
Simon opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, on a hard table. Straps pinned him down, and there were bright lights overhead. At first, he thought he was in the lab, where the men in white coats had operated on him, but then he saw the cages. They lined the wall, and there were creatures within: monkeys and chimps, mostly.
"You're okay, they brought you in here to help you, I think."
Simon looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. It was the same voice he had heard in the Gorilla Enclosure, the one calling down to him from above. He had heard this voice come from Azizi before passing out.
"I'm here," the voice said.
Simon looked at the cages, and finally he found the source: one chimp, standing close to the door of its cage, looking out at him.
He struggled to speak, but still couldn't.
"It's the doctors," the chimp said. "They hurt you, but I think I can help."
He felt a strange sensation in his head. Heat swelled near the back of his head, not painful, but a pleasant, warm sensation.
"Try now."
Simon opened his mouth. "Th-Tha
nk you. Oh god...I can talk...thank you."
"You're welcome." The chimp grinned widely.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"It's me," the chimp said. "It's me, Simon. Don't you recognize me?"
Simon shook his head.
"It's Aaron."
Simon's eyes searched the ceiling. "Aaron? I don't understand. Aaron Yuen? My old tutor?"
"Yes. Don't you recognize me?"
Simon wasn't sure what to say to this. "No. You look different."
"Maybe it's because of what the doctors did to you." The chimp cocked its head to the side.
"I...I don't think so."
"I saw them operate on you, in the lab. I was lying next to you, on another table. I wanted to help, but I couldn't. When they brought you here, I followed you."
"You were there? On the base?"
"Yes. I think they took me there after the bus crash."
Simon blinked. "The school bus? But you weren't on the bus when it crashed."
"Of course I was. I was volunteering as a bus driver. The school district needed drivers badly, so I volunteered."
Simon shook his head. "I don't understand. The driver on my bus was someone else." Simon pictured the man's face: Carl Macklin, the man who had ordered the doctors to operate on him. Simon very badly wanted to meet him again. Very badly.
"I was driving the bus," Aaron said. "Something happened to it, to all of us."
"And you got turned into an ape like me?"
Again, the chimp cocked its head to the side. "Ape? What do you mean?"
A monkey two cages away chimed in, "What are you talking about, Simon?"
A woman walked in, wearing a lab coat. Her name badge labeled her a veterinary assistant. She leaned over Simon and spoke. "Why did you say 'ape'? What do you mean, Simon?"
______________________
Simon gaped at the portal in the sky, through which poured swirling lights to surround the rooftop. His mouth dropped.
Flashes then, cascading through his mind: The city of wooden towers. Prisoners in a dark dungeon. A steamy jungle. Rage. Freedom.
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