Outlier

by Kyle Harris

  Chaz knew what she was about to hear.

  “An extension of employment in exchange for your freedom.”

  “No.”

  She swore Rothschild’s eyebrows made a noise when they hiked up. “A refusal of this offer means the current evidence stands, and twenty long years await you in Wheeler. You understand?”

  Chaz said, “I’m not ready. I need more time.”

  “More time.” The lines on Rothschild’s forehead multiplied. “You are voluntarily choosing imprisonment over a chance to breathe free air again?”

  The air out there stinks as much as it does in here. She said: “Did you get my request?”

  Rothschild nodded. “Flight Code and Automated Aviation: A Guidebook and An Aviator’s History of Hamman Self-Flying Aircraft. You have interesting tastes in reading material. The first had to be printed out, because no hard copies exist.” The look on her face suggested she had questions. Many. “They will be delivered to your cell this afternoon.”

  Chaz stubbed out her cigarette. “Good.”

  “Why the interest, if I may ask? Do you want to be a pilot?”

  “Something like that.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Gina bleated for help, her eyes dropping tears like she hoped they would buy her exemption. When really she was wailing because she was ashamed. Ashamed of being a woman. Ashamed of how fucking weak she was.

  It was pathetic, watching her try to claw away. Comical too.

  “Where you going?” said Chaz, dragging the woman back by her ankles. “You don’t like it? What’s not to like?”

  “Please! Please, don’t!”

  “You just wanna be a faggot boy, huh? Too hard being a girl? Or you just too ugly?”

  She was so fucking wet too. Funny, he thought. For such a whiny bitch, it sure seemed like her body wanted the cock. Just like all women. That’s the way they were programmed, to be fucking baby factories. Gina here just needed a dick to remind her of her genetics. Then, then, she would beg for more.

  “Please, stop! I’ll do any—”

  Chaz whipped the woman over and slapped her across the face. “You want this,” he snapped. “You want it, you want it, you want it.”

  She was shaking her head. The wetness in her eyes matched the wetness in her cunt.

  “Repeat it back to me: I’m nothing but a stupid, pitiful woman. I want to be abused. I want to be raped. This is my place! And I enjoy being fucked!”

  Gina repeated the words back. Good. She was catching on. Chaz couldn’t blame the bitch for bawling her eyes out, though; she had been raised on the pretty princess juice of The Three Lies. The first was Santa Claus. The second was God. And the third? That her life could be worth something. That she had value as a woman besides being a flesh-and-blood fuck toy or an incubator on legs.

  “You keep that faggot mouth shut, or I’ll slit your goddamn throat.” Chaz grabbed the woman’s trembling legs to steady them both. When he pushed inside, Gina uttered not a peep.

  See? he thought. I was right about you.

  He went hard and fast, the feedback in his cock like firecrackers. Gina continued to mewl there, undulating with the thrusts and the bed, but of course she didn’t have to fucking move. As a woman, she didn’t have to fucking do anything. Except submit. Chaz lowered himself to feel and fondle and taste everything that belonged to him.

  “Is this what I am to you now?” asked Gina, mellowed after her squawking.

  Chaz pulled his mouth off a nipple. “What?”

  “I thought there was something serious between us.” Her head was turned away. She was talking to the wall. “I don’t like what you’ve become. You can’t treat me like this.”

  “I can treat you however the fuck I want,” he barked at her. “Because you’re just a thing. A worthless, stupid thing. If you want to be treated better, you should’ve been a man. Like me. As a woman, you’re nothing!”

  It was better when she was on her front—no red eyes to look at, no slobbery lips, no snot running from her nose. She was prettier. Chaz grabbed a handful of her hair because he felt like he ought to, and he fucked her rough because men did that. And he was a man. This was for him, not for her, not for that whimpering thing with a great ass. And that got him to thinking: a woman was nothing more than a flower—its scent or its bright color drawing in a bee. That’s what women should be thought of as. Flowers. Colorful and with enough complexity to survive, but relatively lifeless. Women having brains like men had been an evolutionary hiccup.

  I’m a bee. You’re a flower. All you do is open your fucking petals for me. You just sit there pretty on your fucking stalk.

  Climax announced itself with a tickle in his crotch. The penis quivered, the reservoir dumped its load, and his groin reported pleasure. But even after the job was done, he continued to thrust, grunting and panting, reiterating the act dozens more times until exertion cramped his legs and sweat dripped off his brow. It wasn’t finished.

  Gina croaked for him to stop. Then yelled it.

  “No!” he screamed at her, yanking on her hair to pull sense into her. “I won’t! I won’t, I won’t!”

  She just needed it more—that’s all. More fucking, more abuse. More dicks. She would accept it, maybe not yet, but eventually. She would accept that this was what her life was. Because she was a fucking useless girl. Anything more than that was just signs of mental illness.

  She had to get over it.

  This was her body.

  This was her fucking life.

  Chaz collapsed onto the woman’s back. “I’m sorry, Gina!” he sobbed, into her shoulder. “I’m sorry!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  In his office, Kennedy sat relaxed in his chair, occasionally sipping from a green vegetable smoothie. As before, his henchman squad was there to keep a watchful eye. They could play the tight-lipped roles all they wanted, but the internet had plenty to say. Their names were Franco and Travis—a couple of security-for-hire goons with resumés of contractor jobs and bodyguard experience. Franco had a few marksman awards and had starred in a slew of ads for a local gun range; Travis had been a cage fighter until he’d dislocated his arm one too many times. Both were active members on a message board about juicing.

  Kennedy sat forward. “This morning,” he started, “I woke up, and it dawned on me—it’s been more than two weeks since you first walked into this building. Can you believe that?” He paused like he expected an answer; Chaz kept it rhetorical. “I guess you may call this a formal progress report. That’s how I wrote it in my planner, at the very top, because this is the most important meeting of my day. Someone like you, with your busy schedule, must also maintain a planner of some kind.”

  She lit a cigarette.

  Kennedy raised a finger upon hearing the scrape of the lighter. “There is no smoking inside this…”

  An exhaust of bluish smoke streamed from the corner of her mouth. She quietly regarded his initial vexation toward her noncompliant attitude, but of course he needed his lesbian computer hacker. He wouldn’t test their relationship over something so trivial.

  She grabbed his empty mug to use as an ashtray.

  “Fine,” he admitted. Then: “Ah, you know what’s funny? I was just like you at your age, believe it or not. My parents told me I wasn’t following the rules, but they wouldn’t say rules. They’d say, ‘Israel, dear, you can’t behave that way, or it’s perdition that awaits you when you depart this place.’ And I would ask them how they knew for sure. Had they been there themselves? Had they laid eyes upon this foretold place of eternal damnation? How could they know? They didn’t like me talking that way.” He adjusted his glasses. “It’s funny to me how people use God as their shield, and yet these same people, these same godly people, are so mindlessly consumed by hostility and violence. For praising a man—a deity, excuse me—of unfathomable excellence, these people are such wretches. Absolute wretches.”

  Chaz nodded, absently. She’d been meaning to ask herself a question be
fore lighting the cigarette, but it had slipped her mind. She searched for it in the smoke.

  “Hate is all we share as human beings.” Kennedy stood up and went back to his familiar pacing. “In this world, you’ll find no less than a thousand ways to put a cork on this hate, to convince yourself that you no longer possess it, but religion has done something else, Chaz. You know what that is?”

  She silently watched him.

  “It declared hate socially acceptable.” He stopped and opened his arms toward her. “Breakthrough. That’s why religion feels so natural to people of lesser intelligence. Because it harnesses something primal.” He took a deep gulp of his smoothie. Then: “Hate is a survival instinct—Did you know this? Say there’s a peon who is required to toil all day to receive a loaf of bread. He’s content with this. The next month, his reward is reduced to half a loaf. The next, a fourth of a loaf. He begins to feel hate for the man who gives him the bread. Why? Because the peon cannot live on such little food. Hate is the brain’s way of motivating itself to survive. So the peon attacks the man with the bread. Clergymen have understood this relationship for centuries. By manipulating survival instincts of people—say, declaring a foreign race as a hazard to their way of life—you create instant solidarity.” He snapped his fingers. “You sow hatred and, through this shared hatred, incredible unity. Suddenly these people seduced by the holy divinity are looking away from their own suffering, fearing a threat they can’t even see, while happily eating their fourth of a loaf.” Dramatic pause. “Christianity is nothing more than a mass indoctrination by the people in power on the milksops beneath them.”

  What Kennedy was doing was clear: he was trying to show her that he was on her side. That he was her friend. And while she didn’t disagree with what he’d said, it was interesting. Why so desperate?

  Then she found her answer in the smoke, and she knew none of this would matter by tomorrow.

  “Bring me up to date. How is Lilibeth? And the Pruitts? A lovely family?”

  She noted the question: How are they? and not Have you met them yet? Either Kennedy assumed she had made headway, or one of his henches was keeping tabs. Surveillance? Tail? The thought didn’t bother her as much as it probably should have.

  She said, “The job’s fucked. You want a progress report? That’s mine.” She dropped the cigarette into the mug.

  “Have you found the location of Wallflower?”

  “No. And I’m out.” She felt lighter after having said it. Not weighed down. Freedom. “I wasn’t sure until a minute ago, but that’s what I came here to say. I don’t want to do your fucking errand anymore.”

  Kennedy braced himself on the desk, squinting as if he might see something he’d missed. “I suppose this is the beginning of a negotiation. My terms haven’t changed.”

  “It’s got fuck all to do with your money.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Chaz looked him in the eye, stared until she thought she could see through it. Come on, magical projection powers. What would Kennedy see? Everything about that night when Pruitt had followed her home. She wanted him to feel paralyzed while four strangers traded turns with him, feel helpless while they used him like a toy. Then maybe he’d have a fucking clue about what the fucking problem was.

  But Kennedy didn’t see any of that, because telepathy was bullshit. And even if it wasn’t, empathy still was.

  And there was another problem: if she saw Pruitt again, she’d be a murderer. It’d be a switchblade instead of a steak knife, but that fuck’s throat was going to be slashed no matter what. When a personal vendetta got in the way of doing a job, it was time to back down.

  “I just can’t do it.” She got up and started for the exit.

  Tweedledum and Tweedledee converged to block her path.

  Instinct flipped Chaz’s brain over to fight mode, and she was sizing them up before she even realized she was doing it. Null advantage in height, but each had about fifty kilos on her. Stay on her feet, charge Franco first since that bitch would probably reach for his holstered weapon, nut him, do Travis the same, and make a dash for the exit.

  But these knuckleheads were probably more capable fighters than any doppelgängers in her head. So she just glared, and they smiled back. Smiled because they knew she wouldn’t try anything.

  “It’s not for the reason you think,” said Kennedy, behind her. “I spent the majority of two straight months finding the right operative—if you’ll allow me to use that word. I think it’s rather exalting: operative. I spent two months knowing the type of person I had to find, but not knowing who it was yet. Then I found you. As close to perfection as I was ever going to get. I spent the next month tracking down alternates, devising all kinds of cockamamie plans with unfeasible risks.” His voice spiked, and something large crashed.

  Chaz turned around. During his little tantrum, Kennedy had knocked over his chair. He righted it and pushed it back toward the desk.

  He sighed, hands on his waist. “You can’t quit. I’m sorry that we’ve come to this position where I have to say those words, but I mean it. And I know you’re going to hate me, and you should. In your shoes, I’d hate me a whole lot too. In fact, I give you permission to hate everyone in this building for the rest of your life, but I need you to do this job.”

  Her slow journey back to her chair was observed by three sets of eyes. Oddly, Chaz still felt relief: deep down, she had suspected Kennedy wouldn’t let her go. The truth stung, but the hand with the cards had been shown. One less secret.

  Suck it up. Just do it and take the money. Then forget everything.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t want this to tarnish our relationship, but you are—”

  “Your irreplaceable lesbian guru. Yeah, I fucking get it.”

  Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. “Since this new me is being perfectly honest with you, I will admit that I’ve had occasional eyes on your whereabouts.”

  Big shocker. And honesty? Really? Honesty would be telling her what the fuck Wallflower was.

  “As far as the summaries have said, you have bonded with Pruitt’s daughter, and you’ve accompanied her back to her home.” It had the objective tone of a police report.

  Chaz eyed the henches again. Which one? Her money was on Franco, the one who had called her a dyke at the first meeting. Yeah, he was the one. The name-callers like him all pretended to despise her type, but they always secretly had drives full of lesbian porn. He was probably hoping to see something.

  “So,” said Kennedy, sitting down again, “what have you found?”

  She gave him the essentials: scoping out the Pruitt residence had uncovered a few places where Wallflower might be lurking, and her tasker had picked up a device unrecognized by her entire armada of software. Kennedy’s interest piqued at this, but Chaz cautioned that it could be anything. Even butt plugs could be networked. The desk was her primary point of interest. If Wallflower was in that apartment, that’s where it would probably be.

  “Then it is paramount that you continue to pursue the relationship with Pruitt’s daughter,” advised Kennedy. “I trust your expertise that this would be a difficult place to encroach. She is, if I might say, the metaphorical key to this whole job.”

  Chaz suppressed a groan. But he wasn’t wrong, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? Ten days had gone by, and Libby hadn’t reached out to her once. Chaz knew some of the blame was on her own shoulders for not doing the same, but what the hell was she supposed to say? Yeah, sorry for making a wreck of your supper and putting a knife to your dad’s throat. Still wish I’d flayed him.

  She sighed, deeply.

  “When you have the program, send it immediately. After I verify the contents, the payment is yours, and our pleasant business will conclude.”

  Chaz was about to get up when her tasker chimed: new message. Okocha had sent her a brief statement depicting another encounter between one of his dope pushers and a cult member. Details were omitted, but she suspected some kind of
retaliation for Simon Dodders and the tunnel through his brain.

  |: HE CARRIED ON HIM A DRIVE WITH AN ENCRYPTED FILE. REPORT BACK IF THE INFORMATION IS WORTHWHILE.

  Chaz opened the attachment and sicced her tasker on decoding the document. It was kiddie-level ciphertext, and it took all of 3.72 seconds to reverse the cryptography.

  It was a list. Full names arranged alphabetically, one per line, 97,026 lines. Several with home addresses. At the top in bold type: THE UNRIGHTEOUS (KNOWN FAGGOTS AND LESBIANS IN CRYSTAL CITY).

  Ninety-seven thousand people. How could these fucks know? Her imagination conceived something like a silly mail-in questionnaire—FILL IN A CIRCLE FOR EITHER “GAY” OR “NOT GAY.” But that was stupid, and she resented herself for making light of this. Then it was something else—Surveillance? That many people, it had to be automated. And that made her shudder, the idea that cameras could identify sexual orientation, that someone could make a roster like this. That someone would.

  What the fucking fuck?

  Chaz searched for herself. Her birth name: Charlene McCune. Yep, she was on there. No listed address. An unforeseen perk of paying for her apartment under an alias. So, was this list how these fucking psychos picked their victims? Was it random? The gay lottery?

  Sixteen dead. And number seventeen could be any one of them.

  “Is there a problem?” asked Kennedy.

  That pecking was back in her brain, like if a blinking cursor could throb. She reopened the search box and typed in ISRAEL KENNEDY.

  Yeah. Of course.

  She looked up at the man with the software-styled hair behind his expanse of desk. “What do you know about the Begotten Sons?”

  “Begotten Sons?” He straightened in his seat, eyebrows reaching for his hairline. “The cult? Does this have to do with Lilibeth and the Pruitts?”

  “No.” More pecking. Faster. “Maybe.” She massaged her temples to work the noise out of her head; it didn’t do much but aggravate it. “It might help clear some things up.”