Outlier

by Kyle Harris

  During the pause, Libby said, “I took piano lessons. And ballet. I think I still have my tutus if you want to try them on sometime.”

  “Over my dead body.” Chaz went on to talk about her current gig as a looker and spying on people for a living, including her most recent assignment.

  “His niece?” blurted Libby. “And you watched them?”

  “Sure did.” Chaz reached for her tasker. “I still have the footage saved on my—”

  “No no no, please no. I don’t think I need to see a video.” Libby’s skin was back to the color of milk. Her smile looked strained. “I’ll settle for your description.”

  “Right. Incest. That’s gotta be a huge no-no, huh? What level of hell are they gonna be thrown into?”

  Libby just shook her head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

  Silence. The simulation of wind elicited a recorded sound of rustling. The polygon meshes of leaves and branches reacted to algorithms of fluid dynamics. It looked convincing.

  “Chaz. I want to ask you a personal question. If I make you uncomfortable, you can refuse. I’ll understand and not be upset.”

  “Go for it.”

  Libby’s mouth opened and closed a few times before she found the words. “Do you not want to be a girl?” she asked. “There’s this way you walk, and this gait you have…and there’s your hair, and your clothing, and…I don’t know many girls who beat up guys in clubs. And the way you smell, like—”

  Chaz frowned. “You saying I stink?”

  Libby laughed, sheepishly. “No. You don’t stink. I mean, guys just have a certain smell, and so do girls, but they’re different, and yours is more like the boys I’ve been around, but I’m not saying it’s bad, and now I’ve started rambling because that’s what I do when I’m embarrassed.” She buried her face in her hands, which didn’t hide her reddening cheeks. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I’m judging.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Libby being so up front about it caught Chaz off guard, but it was better to get it out now than later. “When I was fourteen, I took taekwondo. There was a form we had to fill out with our information. In the gender section, I marked myself down as a boy, because I didn’t want to fight any weak-ass girls.” She looked at Libby. “Sorry.”

  Libby smiled and nodded, signaling Chaz to resume.

  “I made it three weeks before my lack of a penis was discovered. Didn’t matter; they wouldn’t let me spar because of my legs. Too dangerous. Probably a smart idea.” She looked down at her shoes, the sloppy knot of laces. “When the boobs started coming in, I wrapped duct tape all the way around my chest to make them stop growing. I kept a special sock so I could get my bulge on.” She shook her head. “I used to have this dream all the time. I’m taking a shower, and I start scrubbing my body really hard, and this girl costume comes off. Like the whole time there was a boy underneath. The boobs are gone, I have hair everywhere, and I’m happy.”

  “What about now? Do you still feel that way?”

  Chaz nodded, slightly. “I don’t want to be some macho douchebag, but just somewhere on that side of the fence. Someone who never gets mistaken for a chick ever again. If that makes sense.”

  “Yeah. It does.” Libby planted a soft kiss on her cheek. “Thank you for being honest. No matter which you are, I’m pretty sure I’d still like you.”

  With a smile forming, Chaz looked over at her. “Even if I had a dick? And lots of hair on my butt?”

  Libby hesitated, then nodded. “I think I would. Because I can see your self, Chaz. The real you is not the atoms and molecules, or what puberty gives you. The self is inside.” She tapped Chaz’s chest. “And the self is neither female or male. It doesn’t have a gender. It doesn’t even have organs. Your self is your morals and your virtues, the person who God sees and loves. And that person is who I feel something for.”

  Chaz pointed out a flaw. “But if I was a dude, you couldn’t call yourself a lesbian.”

  “Then maybe I’m not a lesbian.” She said it almost defiantly. “I’m just attracted to the type of person who is typically a woman in this world. In the afterlife, we are all the same.”

  “And,” added Chaz, “that makes you closer to God because you have this X-ray vision. Like a superpower. You see who people really are.”

  Libby, grinning, gently pushed her. “I think you’re making that up.”

  “No way. God’s totally my bro. He told me how special you are.”

  “You’re so funny. And cute.”

  In the midst of Chaz explaining how sweet Don Quillxote was—and his weight problem—Libby excused herself to the bathroom. When she left the room, Chaz whipped out her tasker and got to work.

  First, SNIFF_OUT!. Sorting by signal strength, she filtered out all the wireless networks except this apartment’s—it was titled PRUITT_HOME, which eliminated all guesswork—and opened up the hierarchy of the few dozen connected devices. SNIFF_OUT! ID’d all the worthless junk—appliances, home theater, workout equipment, climate control—and hid it off to the side. What she was left with were three taskers—hers, Libby’s, Juliet’s—and a desk. Not so bad.

  Pacing around Libby’s bedroom and pulling up a blueprint of the apartment from the Platinum Regal website, SNIFF_OUT! was able to retrace the signal routes based on a rudimentary spatial bitrate profile. The software highlighted—in red circles—the likely locations of the selected devices. Since the blueprint didn’t include furniture and all that shit, there was a margin of error of a couple meters. But it was a start.

  Where would Wallflower be? Good fucking question. But the desk was high up on her suspect list.

  She’d been certain before, and she was even more certain now: wireless intrusion was a last resort. People like the Pruitts weren’t usually the savviest with tech, but they’d bought their shit from people who were. Snooping around in networks might trip a hidden alarm. Five seconds later, Mr. Pruitt would be connected to a technician giving him the lowdown on the device that had just tried to hack his computer. Even operating under a virtual address, all it took was common sense—she’d never been in the apartment before, and she’d been there when it happened. Even a Neanderthal could connect those dots.

  So, foot soldier it was.

  Browsing the hierarchy of devices again, there was one that SNIFF_OUT! hadn’t filtered out or labeled as a tasker or desk. It had a lengthy network designation, and it was identified as UNKNOWN DEVICE. Also, according to the positional estimate, it was right beneath her feet.

  A pair of hands came up and covered Chaz’s eyes.

  “Boo!”

  “Bless us, Heavenly Father, and Thy food and drink before us. Let us offer our gratitude for Thy bounty, our health, and Thy love that we hold in our hearts and in Thy Divine Mind. Through God, we pray. Amen.”

  Matthew Pruitt was bigger than he looked in the photos. Not fatter—just scaled up in dimensions compared to what Chaz had visualized. Up close, the fade from silver hair around his ears to black on the crown was more subtle and regulated. Besides that, he boasted that same middle-aged lumpy face, the uneven eyes, the deep widow’s peak. And apparently the look of constipation was the factory setting.

  Libby had originally aimed for the seat beside Senior Dickwad, but Chaz jockeyed for it instead. No offense to family tradition, but she wanted to smell this turd up close. Other than Juliet’s cutthroat glare, no objections were voiced.

  After grace, they dug in to pork chops, green green beans, garlic-roasted potatoes, and buttery bread rolls. Plus there was yogurt for dessert. Chaz couldn’t remember having a meal that hit so many food groups. Or a meal that was so fucking tedious. The Pruitts ate like goddamn sloths. She went at their pace to not draw attention to herself, fully chewing and swallowing before the next bite. Sometimes there was a comment about the weather. Or stocks. Or the mayor’s political dispositions. Boring rich people shit.

  When there was an intermission in the gossip, she said, “Thanks for the food, Mrs. P. It hit
s the spot.” She emphatically forked a mess of green beans into her mouth.

  Across the table, Juliet’s smile lasted no longer than a muscle twitch. But, to Chaz’s surprise, the woman said, “You’re welcome.”

  Since the onset of the meal, Chaz had picked up on Mr. Pruitt glancing over at her, and without anything resembling discretion. After a while it became habitual. He would chew, and he would observe something about her—face, hair, clothes, hands—until the next cut of pork required his focus, and the cycle would repeat.

  I won’t start it, Chaz found herself thinking. But if you got something to say, open your fucking mouth and spit it out.

  They locked eyes—the beginning of an impromptu staring contest that lasted almost a full minute. If it was meant to intimidate her, it didn’t.

  Come on, I know you want to.

  Her projection powers worked. “Chaz, is it?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s my name.” The forced polite address left her mouth tasting of vomit.

  Pruitt leaned toward her, the knife and fork gripped upright in his hands like a couple of goalposts. Or weapons. He asked, “What are you supposed to be?”

  Chaz kept a straight face. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I am only looking for clarification.” He speared a couple of green beans with his fork but didn’t eat them yet. “As the head of this household, I should caution you that you have entered the domain of God.”

  Chaz leaned back in her chair as Pruitt munched his vegetables. “Oh yeah? Well I’m just fucking shaking.”

  Juliet banged her fork against her plate. “Language!”

  Chaz threw her hands up in a gesture of concession.

  Pruitt went on: “I was looking at you because I am unsure of what you are. My daughter has made it clear that she wishes to stain this righteous place with her sin, along with the same demons that ravaged our homeland. She asserts her faithfulness to God and contends herself to be Christian, but she is a heretic.” He shook his head, curtly. “And you, Chaz? What I see is someone who is very confused. So, allow me to ask you again. What are you?”

  She felt her hand being squeezed. Chaz looked over at Libby; she was shaking her head as if to say, Don’t do it.

  “Well? Am I to interpret your silence as uncertainty or disrespect?”

  Sorry, Libs. Chaz turned back to Pruitt. “Here’s a thought: it’s none of your damn business.”

  He shared a look of amusement with his wife. “I think that someone should be one or the other, not this in-between that has caught on and that always seems to fetch the affinity of my daughter. During your upbringing, you were taught about Adam and Eve, weren’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, it is important,” he explained while slicing his meat, “that you understand—and you need to—that God created only two genders in His Mind.” He raised a cut of pork with his knife, a potato with his fork. “Man. And woman. Some say if I fashion this pork to the same shape and alter its flavor with spices to make it appear and taste like a potato, it will be a potato. Not so. It was grown as pork, and its composition is still pork. Pork is pork. Potato is potato. Do you understand?”

  Chaz opened her mouth.

  “And there is something else that I must tell you, since you both have chosen dishonor—my daughter has brainwashed more than you into this iconoclastic misbehavior.” His gaze bounced to Libby then back to Chaz. “Do you think we would be alive, having this meal from God’s bounty, if He had, instead of Adam, made an Abigail? Or, instead of Eve, given rise to an Ethan? I don’t see how that would be possible. Do you?” He set his silverware down. “Adam and Eve’s union not only created our entire human race—every man and woman that has lived, is living, or has yet to live—but illustrated His will perfectly. Joining two women or two men is a defiance to God and all His creations.” He stared at Chaz. “And if you are not man or woman, you are blasphemy. Transgenderism is a direct attack on God’s design.”

  Chaz folded her arms on the corner of the table, leaning into his personal space to show him that she couldn’t be bullied into submission like Libby. “I ran into that sleazeball you hired to follow your daughter around and call her names,” she said. “You probably want to check the hospitals. He’ll need someone to cover his expenses. You Christians are supposed to be charitable, right?”

  Pruitt’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “I know what kind of person you are.” So much more than you think. “I know you’re trying to scare me off. But I’m not going anywhere. Libby needs protection from her fucking parents.” She shot a look in Juliet’s direction, expecting the woman to butt in, but she stayed silent.

  “Like all other heathens, you enshroud yourself with these falsehoods because they make you feel better.” His eyes scanned her. “You’re young, but I do not believe you to be unintelligent. What do you think it was that brought the wrath of God upon the Earth? The rising seawaters that flooded the coastal cities, the fires that torched the forests, the diseases that took the children, the droughts that destroyed farmlands?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “It was your kind. The homosexuals.”

  “My kind, huh?”

  “When man lay with man and woman lay with woman, humanity deviated from the teachings of God, and we did not atone for the tolerance of this devilry in our society.”

  It chagrined her that she couldn’t cause spontaneous human combustion with her mind. “You know what?” she said. “If Earth was full of people like you, maybe they all fucking deserved it.”

  Juliet gasped.

  Pruitt leaned closer, like he wanted to touch noses. “And we have done our Father an enormous disgrace by allowing you people onto this planet. They did not vet the migration, they did not say no to the homosexuals and the transgenders and all manner of queers. This planet, Trident, was bestowed to us by the grace of God and His love. You know this, don’t you? It was the Earth year 2068, and the greatest famine of modern time ravaged the population. My grandfather described to me the mass graves on the news, children dumped into the ground by the truckloads. The ice caps had melted, and enormous cyclones of rain and wind battered the planet year round. The Christians of the world came together and prayed for relief, and relief was provided.”

  Chaz felt it was an award-worthy performance that she wasn’t laughing her ass off.

  “God and His Great Mind gave us a second Eden in which to begin anew, and He provided us with the technology to reach it. Then you sinners came along. And what has happened to Crystal City because of this? Crime, poverty, illness, death.” He grimaced. “The homosexual demons should have been left to burn on their dying planet.”

  Chaz glanced at her plate—fork on the left, knife on the right. “It bothers you so much that your own daughter isn’t straight.” This guy was a new layer of undiscovered shit. Super extreme ultimate shit 9000. “And the gays—like me and Libby—are the reason people light-years away are suffering?”

  “I have prayed for—”

  “Oh you’ve prayed.” This time she laughed. “You’ve gotten down on your knees and pleaded for your sweet little angel to stop liking girls, huh? How’s that go? ‘Please, Father, let my dear Lilibeth be enticed by throbbing cock instead of—’”

  “You will not disrespect my service to God in this home!”

  “And what about your impotence, huh?” Chaz pushed herself up so she had to look down at him. “Do you fucking beg for God to fix that too? Any luck? Or are those balls still shooting blanks?”

  Pruitt’s face looked like it was about to rupture some blood vessels.

  Juliet chimed in: “Lilibeth, go to your room.”

  “What for?” asked Libby. She sounded the calmest of everyone.

  “For bringing an infernal creature into our home!”

  Chaz’s eyes snapped to Pruitt’s wife. “Your daughter is nineteen. She’s a fucking adult. Let her make her own decisions.”

  “This is
none of your business! You need to get out!” Juliet whipped a finger toward the door.

  “You people are fucking insane! Stop poisoning her!”

  “You will not tell me how to raise my own daughter!”

  “You shouldn’t even be fucking raising her! You should both be in fucking straitjackets!”

  Juliet shut her trap at that. If the bitch had any fucking sense—she was Christian, so probably not—she would keep it closed. During the shouting, she had stood up and taken station behind her chair like it was a defensive barrier. The fierceness in her eyes was nothing short of murder.

  Fork on the left, knife on the right.

  Everyone had stopped eating, and a silence fell over the table. Libby remained in her seat against her mother’s wishes. Pruitt had not budged, and he was the first to talk again.

  “I was once like you,” he said. “Not in desires, but in spirit. Rejection of that which I now hold to be fact.” He took a sip of water. “Do you know the major problem of settling a new world? Our immune systems. Medical science would have you believe it is the bacteria, these foreign invaders wreaking havoc on our bodies. But Christian Science recognizes that these bacteria, these little microscopic things, are harmless, and infection is only a weakness of our minds. And the pagans will receive their vaccinations so they can step where we step, breathe the air that we breathe, but they are not us, and they walk in cloaks of deceit, which His Mind can see right through.” His raised a finger. “This new world that God provided was a test of faith. Either surrender your trust in Him and inject yourself with false immunity, or step into His new garden pure and ready to be judged.”

  “There’s a teensy problem,” Chaz pointed out. “Anyone that didn’t take the vaccinations died. I guess we’re all just full of sin, aren’t we?”

  “Most, yes. But not all.” His lips creased into a little smile. “When I arrived here with my family, I refused the vaccinations, and while God tested me with sickness and pain that I will never forget, my health eventually improved. And now I sit here, imparted with His generosity and kindness. He has shown me that I have nothing to fear in this place.”