by Schow, Ryan
According to Sensei Hu—a lightning fast ninth degree black belt—Delta 1A’s kicks and strikes were lazy and slow. They lacked proper snap, form and body dynamics. During both weapons training and kumite (sparring), Delta 1A would have died a thousand deaths and had multiple bones broken, had their combat been full contact.
Against Sensei Hu, Delta 1A fought like an amateur. An undeveloped child against a merciless beast. It was like David’s left testicle trying to do battle with Goliath.
In other words, against his master, Delta 1A lacked everything. He was a proficient killer, even at such a tender age, yet he was also nothing.
Sensei Hu never let Delta 1A stop moving. Not during kata (forms), not during kumite (sparring) and not during kobudo (weapons). If Delta 1A didn’t throw up at least three times each day, Sensei Hu said he simply wasn’t trying hard enough. Not throwing up, that meant push ups. Sit ups. Wall sits. All things to purge the boy of weakness. When Delta 1A showed an ounce of pain, or worse, if he gave up, Sensei Hu would say, “This is the way of the old masters,” and then he’d push harder still.
2
At noon he was fed either a medium-well slab of beef, eight ounces of cod, or two chicken breasts. Add rice, sweet potatoes or some other carbohydrate and that was his lunch. Plus, half a gallon of water so he didn’t dehydrate. He was now eating six times a day. Plus protein shakes. Three a day. Anything to help his body recover. Anything to put on size, mass.
At the on-site indoor firing range, he shot a thousand rounds from the nine millimeter Sig Sauer, putting all but two of them in the center ring. For those two shots he missed, his shooting instructor—a retired marine sergeant and one of the private contractors now guarding the facility—forced him to do one thousand push ups and one thousand sit ups. The man was a bull. Ripped, shredded, cut. His buzz haircut fit his personality, and his t-shirt strained against his chiseled physique. If Delta 1A could feel anything for this man it would be animosity.
During the push ups, his instructor loaded his pistol and kept it aimed at the boy’s back. He kept saying, “Quit and I’ll put one through your spine. You wanna quit, boy? Go ahead. Shooting you will only simplify my life.”
On his last hundred push ups, he started to waver. His arms shook furiously and his pace slowed so much Delta 1A was sure he’d be shot. He felt his will shrinking. Imagined himself quitting. Getting shot. The instructor spun the gun around and pistol whipped the boy on the back of the skull, not to the point of unconsciousness. Just enough to fill him with fire.
“Get moving!” his instructor screamed. Delta 1A picked up the pace.
When he was done, when he threw up then wiped his mouth clean, he felt more than ready for dinner. Before he left the training area, his instructor looked at him long and hard and, with a sideways grin, said, “You’re going to be a lethal fucking thing of beauty.” Delta 1A didn’t know what beauty was, but he understood lethal.
3
Dinner was two breasts of broiled chicken. Dinner was a cup of brown rice and a bushel of steamed broccoli. Dinner was no butter. His handler forced him to drink another half gallon of water. At six thirty in the evening, after dinner had settled, weight training began.
One day was upper body. Then lower body. And finally cardio and abs.
Then it began again.
Muscles were ripped. Muscles rebuilt. He made gallons of sweat. He replenished his body with gallons of water. There was no fat on his body. Only muscle. Taught, lean muscle. It wasn’t enough.
He was a boy, but not a boy. He was human, but not human.
When his arms trembled with exhaustion, he was beat and told to finish out the set. When his legs were shaky, when they felt like they were going to buckle, he was beat and told to push it out. He couldn’t quit. Was told to despise the very idea of it.
Like his shooting instructor, his weights and conditioning coach carried a gun. It seemed like the more difficult the workout, the more he did it staring at a loaded gun for motivation. He did squats with the gun in his face. He did bench press with the gun jammed into his groin. He did curls with the gun pressed to the back of his neck.
“You want to be thrown from The Freedom Train?” the boy’s instructor would routinely ask. The body’s termination. Death.
“No sir,” the boy’s mouth said.
But words were meaningless. Finishing the set was life. Finishing the workout meant survival.
So he finished. And he survived.
But barely.
Melting Down
1
Maggie stands there staring at me, hands on her barely curving hips, her brilliant, angry eyes seeing me in bed, asleep with this beautiful stranger. I guess I’d be shocked, too.
“It’s not what you think,” I say. I don’t know why I say that. Anytime someone in the movies says that, they have that look on their face that says it’s exactly what the other person thinks.
“What it looks like is you and the fire-crotch here are bumping donuts.”
I huff out loud, now fully awake with my anger. “It’s not like that! Jesus, Maggie, it’s not like that.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I look back at the clone, sleeping, her pale skin vampire-like, her body so pure and untouched by the weather of life. I look back at Maggie, my eyes pleading with her, begging for understanding.
“I need to explain,” I say.
It is right then that the clone opens her eyes and starts screaming, like full-bellied, glass-splitting, eardrum-shattering screaming.
I jump out of bed, roll my ankle on landing and fall on my butt. She’s still screaming as I get to my feet.
When her lungs finally give out, Maggie and I are standing there startled into silence. A wide-eyed, baffled silence. The clone’s big eyes suddenly shimmer, then flood. She pushes herself against the wall, trying to get away from us, trying to not be awake, aware.
“What the hell?” Maggie says.
I turn to her and say, “Magpie, she’s a clone.”
“No,” Maggie whispers. More a statement of dread than anything.
I look at the clone and she’s cowering in the corner, tears dripping down her eyes.
“I stole her yesterday,” I finally admit.
“You what?”
“I might have assaulted some people to get her.” Maggie just looks at me with that shocked look. Then back to the clone. Then back to me. I say, “People assaulted me, too, Mags. Like, real bad.”
The clone is now sobbing. She’s pulling the blankets over her body, covering herself even though she’s in a t-shirt and underwear. How would she know to do that? If she’s been naked all her life, and not awake, how would she feel anything at all for modesty?
It must be instinctual.
Primal.
“You don’t look hurt to me,” Maggie says. She doesn’t look so mad now. She’s looking back and forth between me and the clone. Like she’s worried about her, but not sure how to react on account of the clone not being a real girl.
“It’s because I’m not. I mean, I was hurt yesterday. But not now.”
“What are you saying?”
“Gerhard did something to me.”
“This should be good,” Maggie says, hands on her hips. She’s getting angry again. She’s still looking back and forth between me and the clone and I can see she thinks I’m lying.
“This is going to sound…I don’t know…impossible, but I think maybe I’m…immortal.”
Maggie laughs at this, then turns away, looks back at me and shifts from one foot to the other. The cruel smile on her face becomes a frown of disbelief. “You’re so full of crap right now.”
“Okay, maybe not immortal, but I heal like super fast.”
“Prove it,” she says with narrowed eyes.
“Look, I get what you’re going through, Mags, but you’re coming off like a real bitch right now and I know for a fact this isn’t you, so please, tone it down.”
“I said prove it.”
2
I’m looking around the room for something I can use to stab myself with when my phone starts to ring. Great!
It’s Netty.
On second thought, maybe the distraction is just what I need. The truth is, I’m not all that excited about hurting myself again. The clean-up sucks, but more than that, the way my body burns afterwards, it’s like having flashbacks from my first transformation, and that felt worse than a swing-shift in hell.
I answer the phone. “Netty,” I say, an unintended edge to my voice.
“What’s wrong?” she says, her Russian accent thick. Whenever I hear her voice, I feel a sense of home. She’s my best friend, and I miss her terribly. I just wish I wasn’t so stressed out, because I really want to talk to her.
Looking at Maggie, scared for what she’s about to do or say, I measure my words carefully, then say to Netty, “Oh, you know, everything.”
“You hung up on me three times,” Netty says.
“These problems I’m having, they’re bad, Nettles.”
“Yeah? Well don’t make me beg.”
“You should come over,” I say, refusing to take my eyes off Maggie. She looks like she’s ready to come out of her skin. “Like right now.”
Maggie blows out a breath, her face getting redder by the minute. Finally she turns and stomps out of the room. I twist my body to look at the clone who’s now curled into my blankets on the far edge of the bed. She’s still crying. Still not looking at me.
“I can’t,” Netty says, matter-of-fact. “Working today.”
“Can’t you call in sick or something? I’m having a motherfreaking crisis over here and I need my best friend.”
“Dude,” she says, “I live in the city now. It’s not just a drive up the street, plus I have this great job and it’s really—”
“Netty, dammit, don’t you hear me? I need you right now!”
God, I sound so demanding.
“Jesus, Savannah, do you hear yourself?” Savannah, not Abby. She must be mad. I force myself to breathe, an old trick from my social anxiety days. I feel myself coming down a notch.
“I know, I know,” I say. “I sound like one of those girls we hate so much.”
“You sound like a bitch,” she says, which is exactly what I said to Maggie. The thing about her is Netty isn’t one to mince words. Plus, being Russian, she doesn’t get how deep the word “bitch” can cut. In this instance, it’s a wake-up call telling me to rein it in.
I run my hands through my hair, try not to scream out of sheer frustration. The clone is still crying, but it’s more of a muffled thing right now.
“I’m sorry.”
“So what is it?” she asks. “Boy problems?”
Just then the other line beeps. It’s call waiting. On my iPhone’s display is Damien’s name. Great. It wasn’t boy problems a minute ago, but now…
“Netty, can you hold on for a second?”
“You’re putting me out,” she says. When Russian girls sound irritated, it’s so much worse than any American girl irritation. I’m clicking over when Margaret comes into the room. I hold up a finger and say hello to Damien.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey back.”
“I got tired of waiting for you to call,” he says.
I’m looking up at Margaret who isn’t going away. She looks vexed. Jesus, everyone’s so short tempered! She mouths the words, “What did you say to Maggie?”
I shrug my shoulders, then nod over at the clone.
“Oh,” she mouths.
“Hello?” Damien says.
“Sorry. It’s just that Margaret’s right here and Netty’s on the other line and Maggie’s kind of freaking out about some stuff right now, so it’s not really a great time.” Then quickly, I add: “But I’m really happy to talk to you.”
More than anything, I want to tell him I’ve been thinking about our kiss ever since I left, but with Margaret standing there, saying anything of the sort would be worse than awkward. Plus, I don’t really need her having that kind of dirt on me.
Finally, out loud, loud enough for Damien to hear, Margaret says, “I think you need to attend to Maggie, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart? Did she really just call me sweetheart?
“Damien, I’d love to talk to you, but the monster’s pestering me.” Margaret bristles at the name and I must admit, her reaction is rather satisfying. “Can I call you later?”
“Sure,” he says, disappointed.
“I’m really sorry.”
I click over and say, “Netty? I’m sorry, I had to get that.” I wait for her to respond, but there’s only silence. I look at the display screen and realize I’m talking to an empty line.
Did she hang up on me? “Netty?”
OMFG, she hung up on me!
“Margaret,” I say in a most unkind way, “what can I do for you?”
“Is that what you call me to your friends?” Margaret asks. “A monster?” At this point, the clone has stopped crying and it’s almost as if she isn’t even there. Even though she is.
“Not a monster, the monster. Can you just go away, please?”
“Go talk to Maggie,” she snaps, the familiar chill back in her voice. Then, looking at the clone, she adds: “And take care of her. She’s not some goddamn toy you can play with anytime you want.”
“What are you doing here anyway?” I say as she’s leaving my room. “And why are you always here?!”
She turns to face me in the doorway. She’s making her angry face. The air between us, it might as well be made of ice crystals. “I came to see your father.”
“You had your chance to see him when you were married, but you cheated. Now I have the chance to not see you and this is how you repay me for my suffering? You just show up all the gosh damn time?”
She just looks at me, the heat simmering in her eyes. Here we go again. When is this ever going to stop?
“Just because your father and I aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean we can’t hang out. We were always friends, you know. We’re still friends. Plus we’re raising you together, so we have that in common.”
“No one’s raising me but me, Margaret.”
The comment has her standing up straight with defiance. Obviously I struck a nerve. “That’s not true.”
Oh dear God, is she serious right now?
“Yeah, like you’re the benchmark for personal responsibility and moderation. You haven’t taught me anything, Margaret, except how to be an asshole. You’re a recovering drug addict. A home wrecker. An adulteress. An alcoholic. Do you even have a conscience? I don’t think so.”
“Stop!” Margaret shouts.
“No! You want to tell me you raised me and I call bullshit! The only thing you ever did for me was push me out of your vagina and slap a name on me. Beyond that, you’re a terrible role model with nothing significant to add to my life, and honestly I’m better off raising myself!”
“Someday when you’re a mother—” she says, her eyes sparkling with tears.
“Go back to your douchebag writer, Margaret. Let us adults rest here in peace.”
The glassy shine in her eyes becomes tears streaking down her cheeks. She brushes them away, not making a big show of the event, even though she would be well within her rights to do so.
“If I’ve taught you anything,” she says, humble, almost whisper soft, “it’s how to assert your cruelty.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll give you that.”
Just then my phone starts buzzing again and Margaret says, “That’s my cue.” She turns and closes the door leaving me with the clone and my iPhone.
I answer it without looking at the number or the clone. “Hello?” I say, feisty, thoroughly pissed off.
“It’s me,” Brayden says. “I just landed. Where are you? I thought you were picking me up?”
I’m about to bark out directions when the phone beeps again.
“Good freaking God!” I practically scream.
&
nbsp; “Well now that’s about the worst greeting ever,” Brayden says, sarcastic.
“Sorry, hang on. The other line’s ringing.” I switch lines. “Hello?”
“Sorry, I had to hang up for a second,” Netty says. “I’m having breakfast with some friends and I needed to order.”
Then it happens. It’s this one thing—this one, singular event—that occurs and pretty much changes the way I see everything. The word “paradigm shift” springs to mind.
“Where am I?” says the voice behind me, small as a mouse’s.
Holy crap, my baffled brain thinks, did that just happen? My body says so because it’s frozen stiff. Paralyzed. Even my soul is hit with the longest, hardest chill ever. Slowly I turn around and the clone is staring at me, her lips lightly parted, the question still sitting in her eyes.
“Where am I?” she says again.
“Holy f*ck,” I mumble. (Obviously, the asterisk is for your benefit. In real life, the whole word just came right out).
“Who are you?” she asks.
I manage to stammer out a question: “How come you can talk?” I don’t realize it just then, but my finger hangs up the phone on both Netty and Brayden. Subconsciously my brain knows this event is too significant to process with two friends waiting to talk to me. The moment seems to last fifteen years rather than fifteen seconds.
“You’re not supposed to be able to talk,” I hear myself say.
“Why?”
“Because…you’re a clone.”
“No,” she says, “I’m not.”
3
Between me and the clone, the air bears all the consistency of churned butter. She sits with the blankets pulled up to cover her while I stand mere feet away, at the edge of the bed. Have I time-warped into a different dimension?
“I said I’m not a clone,” the girl says.