Outlier

by Kyle Harris

  Chaz grabbed the empty glass off the bartop and smashed it over his head.

  And it was on.

  Schnoz went into a rage. He charged low and bulled his shoulder into her ribs. It briefly took her breath away; when it came back, she was already throwing fists at his stupid-looking head, missing more than connecting. She aimed for his nose—biggest target. She jabbed it once. Again. Again. Schnoz stumbled, and his falling mass pushed them both onto a table. When it collapsed under their weight, he clamped a meaty hand around her throat to hold her still.

  “You bitch!” he screamed. Drool danced on his lips as he came at her with a slug. Chaz saw it coming and angled her head away, making it just a graze. His next blow was more on target, just behind her eye. The room spun, and the pain itself throbbed like additional weaker punches.

  Her ears rang with music, shouts. People screamed for help.

  As he punched her again, one of her hands roamed the debris, gripped a splintered piece of table leg. When he pulled back for another windup, she whipped her hand across his face. The blunt side of the leg caught him in the cheek. His fat paw let go, and he rolled off, groaning slurs.

  Chaz wasted no time in turning things around. She got off two quick hits to his jaw before his senses could come back. Then she walloped him twice more in the face with the broken leg, still using the blunt side; attacking with the splintered end could’ve been seen as homicidal intent.

  With enough blood drawn, she backed away and stood up, dropping the makeshift weapon. If she were younger, she might have beat him unconscious, but the fight was a message as much as it was about dishing out pain—I meant what I said, now back the fuck off. Another fatso bouncer pushed his way through the crowd of onlookers. There were scattered boos.

  Schnoz scrambled to his feet. His cheek looked like it might need stitches. Maybe there’d be a scar. Good.

  “This dyke here started it,” he spat, pointing an accusing finger just in case Fatso didn’t know who he meant. “She hit me first! I was just defending myself!”

  Some of the spectators were saying that wasn’t true.

  To Chaz, Fatso asked, “Is it finished?”

  She looked at her foe and wondered if the message had gotten through. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “It’s finished.”

  “You should be happy it is, freak,” said Schnoz, backing away and nearly tripping on the table wreckage. “Maybe you won, but it doesn’t mean anything. You’re still going to hell, just like Lilibeth!” He turned and shouldered a path through the thinning crowd.

  The bouncer called someone on his tasker to come clean up the table.

  Chaz watched Schnoz through the floor panels, which interchanged between a murky red and total transparency to match the beat of the fading song.

  Ciao, asswipe.

  Strangers patted her on the back. Others said the guy got what he deserved. Then the club rhythm returned to normal, and she felt a pair of eyes on her. Between songs and not-yet-restarted conversations, it was quiet enough to hear the deep breath.

  Lilibeth hadn’t moved from the bar. The corner of her mouth had turned up like it was on the verge of a smile, but now it faded. Chaz, feeling that she had no choice now, brushed herself off and walked over to join her.

  The bartender filled a shot glass for Chaz. “A fan bought you something.” It looked like whiskey.

  She opened her mouth. What was that guy’s fucking problem? she would’ve said, or something similar. If there was a perfect moment for a joke to break the ice, now was it. But Lilibeth was shaking her head.

  “It won’t change a thing,” she said. Her blonde hair was matted from the spilled drink. “I mean, thank you for stepping in, but it wasn’t worth your pain.” She pointed to Chaz’s face.

  “What do you mean?”

  Lilibeth’s gaze fell, then rose again. “I appreciate your standing up for me. I really do.” There was a glaze over her eyes. “But just leave me alone, okay?”

  “Who is he? Has he hurt you before?”

  She was shaking her head again, now biting her lip. “It’s better if we have no more conversations.”

  Maybe most wouldn’t have seen it, the face of someone abused into silence, but to Chaz it was as visible as an open wound. Schnoz wasn’t a one-timer; he would be back, and maybe next time he would do more than just berate her and spill a drink on her head. And that was the problem with men like Schnoz, wasn’t it? To them, pain wasn’t a deterrent; it was just another obstacle to up the difficulty and sweeten the goal.

  Chaz looked down at her feet. Below her, Schnoz was walking off his injuries, going for the exit. He wasn’t in a rush.

  New music track.

  Dah-dah-DUM…dah-dah-DUM…dah-dah-DUM-dah-duh-duh-dum.

  She tossed the whiskey into her throat, saving her taste buds from the trauma. Then she removed her tie and placed it on the bartop before loosening her shirt collar.

  Lilibeth’s eyes asked a question. Chaz winked.

  Dah-dah-DUM…dah-dah-DUM…dah-dah-DUM-dah-duh-duh-dum.

  It didn’t take long to catch up to Schnoz. He veered left, and Chaz had to round the corner of the bar area to stay on top of him. The second-floor balcony divided into catwalks, clots of people hindering her progress. She squeezed through, pushing when there was no other option. Schnoz crossed the dance floor, and she saw her moment: a space just wide enough.

  Thunderous beats, silences of anticipation.

  She jogged ahead and vaulted over the railing, and the music erupted.

  Her right leg twisted on the landing—malfunction close to her ankle, somewhere around the stabilizers. Feedback and suspension rebound made her overcompensate and stumble, but she pushed off the floor and bounced back up. By then Schnoz had laid eyes on her.

  This time he wasn’t in the mood for a chat.

  She threw a fist right at his big nose, missed. The frenzy of strobe lights turned the dance floor into a low-framerate video, adding guesswork to spatial awareness. Before she could draw up her hand again, he knocked her in the ribs. She’d never even seen the approach. Intuition spun her away from an unseen follow-up or a surprise hair grab. She bumped into oblivious dancers as she regained her balance.

  His face might have been torn open, but he wasn’t fighting like he had a handicap. She evaded two more fists and jabbed him just below the ear, but the angle was off. He returned with a shoulder blow, and she reeled back while reevaluating her offense.

  Schnoz smiled like it was all a game. “The lesbian knows how to spar! But I got better things to do!”

  He kicked at her. Big fucking mistake. His boot hit nothing but air, but he had just made an amendment to the rules. Even street fights had an unspoken code: unless your life was on the line or you were in a bind, the fight happened above the waist. No legs or feet. With his kick, Schnoz announced that he wasn’t going to abide by such guidelines.

  Fine with me.

  When he came at her again, Chaz raised her leg and drove her boot into his stomach. Sixty or seventy kilos came to a hard stop. When she pushed, the force folded him at the waist, and he crashed to the ground.

  He was slow to get his feet underneath him. When he did, something glinted in his right hand—a switchblade knife.

  “Now we’re even!” he shouted. Even at the top of his lungs, it was barely audible. “You have your legs! I have a knife! Let’s see which one wins!”

  Waiting until he was within range was the hardest part. Now that he’d seen she had a couple enhancements, Schnoz was reluctant to come close. But to cut her with a knife, he had no other choice. And he tried, because he thought he had the upper hand.

  Just like all the rest, he saw a girl, and that gave him confidence.

  He lunged. Chaz brought her foot around, leg fully extended. The feedback of the impact channeled through the thigh linkup and into her brain, and she didn’t have to look to know he’d gone down cold.

  Elsewhere on the dance floor, it was like nothing had happened. Mus
ic stormed her ears. People threw themselves around with an energy of delirious agitation that only alcohol could explain. When they cheered, she imagined it was for her.

  The switchblade seemed a fair prize for fending off tonight’s psycho fuck. She picked it up, folded it, and shoved it into her jeans pocket. Then she left Schnoz to his nap.

  Lilibeth was standing on the catwalk above the dance floor. One look at the soft shock on her face said she’d seen most if not all of the fight. She waited until Chaz came near.

  Then, over the shout of music and crowd: “Who are you?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Have you seen him?”

  Libby—that was the name she’d introduced herself with—had just come out of the fast-food joint’s side exit, hair still damp from rinsing out the alcohol. The first thing she had done was stuff her dress and heels into the alley’s communal trash chute. The receptacle swallowed her club outfit and sent it on to the underground network of garbage condensers.

  Now once more bundled up in her Gucci puffer coat, she was pointing at a public news terminal. According to the headline, twenty-two-year-old Jake Wurman had been missing for five days. The headshot was cropped from a family Christmas photo. He was wearing felt antlers and a collar of gold bells. Looked happy.

  “No,” said Chaz, lighting a cigarette. “But maybe he’ll turn up.”

  “Did you know him?”

  She shook her head. “Why would I know him?”

  “He was always at The Gangway on Fridays. He had a beautiful singing voice. Nobody could match him at karaoke. I like to think that we each have our gifts, and singing was his.”

  “One question: What’s The Gangway?”

  Libby gave her a sideways look. “It’s the most popular gay bar in this area, but they don’t serve alcohol. You’ve never been to it?”

  Chaz savored a drag. “I’m not that type.”

  “You’re not the gay type?” Libby had a warm smile, when she was smiling.

  “No. I mean, yes. Sort of. Fuck.” Chaz massaged her temple where that ass-cobbler had punched her. Kicking some sense into some club trash was no big deal, but talking to girls brought out her inner klutz. Oh, and if she fucked this up, there went the hundred grand. No pressure. “I don’t go out to places like that,” she said. “Gay bars. I don’t really go anywhere.”

  “And clubs?” Libby’s smile broadened. “I guess you don’t go to those either.”

  Emergency pretext time: “I was going to meet someone, but she didn’t show.”

  Libby nodded and looked down. “I know that feeling. I wish it was as easy for us as it is for other people.”

  Mid-puff, Chaz remembered something in the way of manners tickling the back of her brain. She offered the cigarette.

  “No, but thank you. I can’t imagine what my parents would do if they smelled it on my breath. They’d probably put soap in my mouth again.”

  “You still live with your parents?” asked Chaz.

  “Yes. Both of them.”

  “That must suck.”

  Libby had a promising career as an actress if she kept up those smiles. With a little more coaching, it would’ve been totally convincing. Just another happy teenage girl with her perfect life and nothing to hide.

  Chaz had to remind herself to tread carefully here: they’d only just met, and she wasn’t supposed to know anything about Libby’s psycho dad, the Christian Science bullshit, the clowned-up photos. What came out of her mouth couldn’t raise any suspicion.

  She changed the subject back to the club: “So, who was that guy? Your pal with the big nose. He was pretty fucking rude, huh?”

  “I feel like Jake will turn up dead,” said Libby, like she hadn’t even heard the question. “You don’t go missing that long without something terrible happening. And he was someone that everyone at The Gangway knew. He was everyone’s friend.” She shook her head and tucked a clump of blonde hair behind her ear. “I pray God will return him alive and unharmed, but I have this awful feeling.”

  Oh shit, here we go, thought Chaz. She hesitated a moment to see if the world suddenly ended—because there was a nonzero chance that Libby being a God-loving lesbian might open up a black hole or something. But life around them seemed to go on.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Chaz. It seemed like the safe thing to say.

  “I hope you’re right.” Libby pointed to Chaz’s shirt. “You forgot your tie back there. You left it on the bar.”

  “Oh well. Five bucks.”

  “Do you want to eat? Are you hungry? You must be starving after all that.”

  “Sure. As a matter of fact, I think my stomach might eat itself if I don’t feed it soon.” Chaz interpreted its punctual rumble as a threat. “But this place?” She nodded to the fast-food joint. “I hope you know where a toilet is in about thirty minutes, because I’m gonna destroy it. And you don’t want to be around when that happens.”

  That got a genuine laugh out of Libby. Laughter was good—anything to distract her from whatever had her downbeat in the club. It involved more than Schnoz and the public humiliation, but it was also something deeply buried.

  Don’t push it. Just keep that smile on her face. Keep her happy.

  See? she told herself. I can do this.

  “When I thanked you in the club, I was not completely honest,” said Libby. “So, before we do anything else, let me say it again. Thank you, Chaz.”

  “No problem. Looked like he deserved it.”

  Another confirmed smile. “Come on. I know somewhere we can go.”

  That place was the Mirage Diner. And it was retro—checkered tile flooring, classic photos on the walls, prehistoric music coming out of the speakers. A neon sign read: RELIVE THE FABULOUS FIFTIES. Chaz had no fucking idea which century it meant. Might have to consult an archaeologist.

  Also, the place was mostly empty.

  She suddenly laughed.

  “What’s funny?” asked Libby, as they both slid into a booth.

  “I get it. I know why it’s called the Mirage Diner.” Chaz readied her punch line.

  Then Libby said, “Are you all right?”

  “What?”

  She clarified: “You’ve been walking with a limp. You tried to hide it from me, but I could tell your leg was bothering you. Did you hurt it back at the club?”

  Well, she was observant. Chaz had actually been trying to keep her leg injury under wraps, and she’d thought she’d gotten away with walking a little stilted. Apparently not.

  It wasn’t that Chaz was embarrassed; some people just fucking hated prosthetic limbs. Usually it was the same crowd that harbored animosity toward civvies. It was some kind of pro-human, antirobotic movement that had been going on for years, ever since civvies had begun replacing human labor. Nothing in the research had pegged Libby down as one of those freaks, but Chaz kept her titanium hidden just in case.

  Glancing around, she saw a civvy serving the booths. If this diner employed robots, then the odds of Libby being one of those cuntbags had to be pretty fucking low. Good.

  Which meant she could have a little harmless fun.

  “I didn’t want you to worry,” said Chaz. “But yeah, I think I did hurt it. Something feels broken.”

  Libby’s eyes widened. “Broken? Like a bone? Oh gosh. Chaz, you can’t be walking around. You should see a doctor right away. Is it your ankle, you think?”

  “Maybe. Something around there.” Chaz moved her foot with her hand. Then she put on her best grimace. “Oh. Oh shit.”

  “What? Chaz?”

  “It really hurts. I think I fucked it up hardcore.”

  “We’re going to a hospital.” Libby wasn’t kidding around—she was up from her seat and ready to go.

  “Wait,” said Chaz. “Hang on. I think one of the bones just needs to be…”

  “Needs to be what? Chaz, this is serious.”

  She looked up at Libby—or rather the pale, bloodless thing that was wearing her clothes. The squeamis
h type. Even better.

  Chaz extended her leg out to Libby. “Here. Just take a look at it.”

  “Chaz—”

  “It’s gonna be super gross. But you might be able to pop the bone back in place. I’ve seen it work before.”

  “Chaz, I don’t think—”

  “You can’t look away, though. No matter how disgusting it looks.”

  Forget squeamish. It looked like Libby might pass out if Chaz said one more word about blood or broken bones. And that was probably a good stopping point for the suspense—making a girl drop unconscious and bang her head on the floor typically wasn’t good for first dates.

  Chaz rolled up her pants leg for the grand reveal. “Ta-dah.”

  Libby gasped like the titanium had spooked her.

  “You thought you were gonna see something nasty, huh? I think it’s a busted stabilizer that’s got me hobbling.”

  “I really thought you…” She sat back down. “Okay, that makes sense. Because I saw you jump over the railing, and I thought that was a really long drop.” The smile worked itself back across her lips. “I really believed you. How’d you get to be such a good actor?”

  “Just one of my natural-born talents,” said Chaz.

  They tapped in their drink orders on the table; shortly after, the civvy came by and dropped them off—both fizzing glasses of Diet Tri-Cola. Libby sucked from the straw with all the visual tellings of something on her mind: the staring off yonder, the furrowed brow, the hunched-over posture.

  Then came the inevitable: “Do you feel anything in your legs? Do you feel pain?” Her pale cheeks were quick to blush. “I’m sorry. I’ve never talked to anyone with prosthetic legs.”

  “Nah, no pain,” said Chaz. “All I get are vibrations when I’m walking or running. Helps with balance. But if you put your hand on them, I wouldn’t feel it. They’re pretty numb.”

  “How did you lose them? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “It’s fine. But it’s gruesome.”

  Despite the warning, Libby leaned forward a little more, genuinely interested.

  Chaz carried on: “I was young and smooth. Couple friends and I were screwing around on a Metro platform, trying to jump across the tracks. I had the longest legs out of all of them and could clear the rails each time. Then a train was coming, and I thought I’d declare myself the best daredevil on the planet, so I waited until it was close. I timed it, leaped across. But…”