by Tony LaRocca
“Are you storing elastic potential energy?” Sigma asked from beside him, mirroring his thoughts. “I always thought you were supposed to use this like a pendulum.”
He smiled at her. Somehow, she was able to disappear and reappear. Mommy said that she was bad, but she fascinated him. For one thing, she was beautiful. It was her eyes that mesmerized him. They were the color of soil—not dirt, but fresh soil that smelled alive—and they had flecks of gold in them that shone whenever she was thinking, as if she had tiny suns burning inside her. “What’s a pendulum?” he asked.
She lifted the swing next to his, and took a few steps back until the chains were taut. She released it. It swung away from her, reached its apogee, and swung back. She grabbed the chains to stop it.
“That’s like the clock at Grandpa Benjy’s house,” Matthew said.
Her face became expressionless. “Yes,” she said, “your grandfather did have a clock with a pendulum.”
“Did you know him?”
Instead of replying, Sigma sat beside him. “You know,” she said, “I never played on one of these. When I was a baby, I was sent to a special school called Oakwood. They had swings there, but I never tried them. The big kids were always on them. By the time I was a big kid, I was sent somewhere else.”
“Who sent you?”
“Your Grandpa Benjy.”
He kicked off with his legs, swung forward, and then swung back. “Mommy used to push me,” he said, “but she doesn’t anymore. Maybe I’m too big now.”
She examined the chain. Her elegant fingers clenched the steel links, her knuckles turning white. “I never knew my mother,” she said. “I never knew my father either, for that matter. They were killed in a bombing during the war, or so I was told. I’ve always wondered who they were, and if they looked like me.” She glanced at him. “Have you ever felt that way?”
His heart felt thick as a wave of sadness washed over him. “No mommy to push you on the swings?” he asked.
“Nope,” she said with a sigh, “no mommies or daddies at Oakwood. I spent a lot of time playing by myself, but I would also watch the other kids play or fight.” She leaned back, arching her spine. “If I remember correctly, they just kicked off with their legs, and then ‘pumped.’ The pumping action at the height of the arc turns the swing like a lever, which gives it the angular momentum to continue. I understand the mechanics, but I never had the chance to learn how.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to learn with me?”
He looked at Bananas as she chased her tail with never–ending joy. “I wish you had a mommy or daddy to push you,” he said. “If I was your daddy, I would.”
The gold flecks in her eyes glistened, and she blinked. “You’re a very sweet boy,” she said. “Let’s teach ourselves how to pump.”
Matthew turned his gaze to the dirt. He made a line in it with the toe of his sneaker. “I don’t think Mommy wants me to play with you,” he said.
“Hmm,” she said. “But this isn’t playtime, I’m going to teach you about pendulums, driven oscillators, entropy, and friction. It will be educational.”
He considered it. “Mommy said Eight–hundred is supposed to teach me, but he says whatever I want to learn is right here in the Sage.”
“Your brother’s name is 0800,” she said, “and it’s not the same. There’s a difference between knowing how things work, and understanding why. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” he said. He tilted his head back, and watched the rendered clouds drift across the sky. “I feel like that all the time. It’s scary.”
“Don’t be scared,” she said. “Your mind is entwined with the Sage. It’s enhancing your intelligence, and aging your consciousness much faster than normal.” She considered this. “Okay,” she said, “now that I think about it, go ahead and be scared. That would scare the heck out of me.”
He bit his lip. “I guess if it’s like school, Mommy can’t complain,” he said.
“Where is your mother?” she asked.
He wrinkled his nose. “Mommy says you know where we are all the time,” he said, “so why are you asking me?”
A tight smirk came to her lips. She chuckled. “You’re very perceptive,” she said, “and that means you understand more than you see. But for the record, she is in her studio.” She leaned back in her swing, pulling the chains taut. “Now, are we going to swing, or what?”
Matthew grinned, and copied her stance. “Okay, but this is school–time,” he said. He gave her a dramatic wink. “We’re not playing, we’re learning.”
Sigma rewarded him with a small smile. She took a deep breath, kicked back, thrust her legs forward, and pulled on the chains as she swung upward. When the swing fell, she pulled her legs in, and let her momentum carry her back. She pulled, and stuck out her legs again at the height of the backswing. She repeated the process until she had a steady rhythm.
“So?” she asked. “What are you waiting for?”
Matthew took a deep breath, and kicked off. He yanked his legs back right away, and jerked to a halt. He clenched his teeth, stood, and swung again, this time with his legs extended. He felt a strange sensation, as if being pulled. He waited for the swing to fall before kicking back. He shot his legs out, but he had not reached the height of the backswing. He wound up kicking the ground, and fell sprawling in the dirt.
She continued to swing. “What’s the problem?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “I don’t wanna do this.”
“Okay,” she said.
He pulled himself to his feet, inspecting his arms. They were sore, but he was not hurt. He rubbed his left shoulder. “I think I broke my arm,” he said.
“Too bad.”
“I’m going to tell my mom.”
“Go ahead.”
He walked towards the house, but stopped before he reached the edge of the patio. What was there for him inside? His mother would not want to talk to him; she was painting, and would be angry if he interrupted. She would also be mad at him for playing with Sigma. He looked back at the Cyleb. She was still swinging, her thick, brown hair rising and falling about her neck. Her body had become part of a mechanism, a metronome that swung with perfect rhythm. More than that, she was the power source. He walked back to the swing, sat next to her, and kicked off again.
It took three more attempts before he was able to jerk himself into a pump. After a minute, he began to get the hang of it: the feel of his weight pulling him forward, the rush of falling backwards, and the timing required to move his legs at the correct moments. He grinned and laughed as he swung higher and faster.
Alyanna took a swig from her bottle of “whiskey.” She felt the taste and sting of alcohol in her mouth, but when she swallowed, she only gulped air. Maybe it was better that she was in the Sage after all. At least this way, she could drink all she wanted without hurting her baby.
Her baby. It was still impossible to accept. She put down the bottle, and rubbed her stomach. She probably would not show for a few more months. And then what? Would she give birth in her V.R. suit? She wrapped her arms around her chest, and squeezed.
Her new studio was an approximate replica of what she had had before, except it was far too neat. She could not help but be amazed at the Sage’s fluid dynamics. The oils mixed like real paint, and stuck to the canvas with realistic texture. There were no commissions here, no E.C., and no patrons. There was only her. She spent every free minute painting or sketching. It was the only way to quell the storm inside her, the only way to keep her crushing anxiety at bay.
She checked her watch. It was five to one, almost time to play with Matthew. She had tried to fall into some semblance of normality since Jaeger had imprisoned them. The problem was, she had never been a normal mother. She had not found joy in playgrounds, in gossiping with other mothers about what had been on the virts last night, or which not–present mother was sleeping with whom. The game of secretly trying to one–up each other on whose children’s clothes w
ere the cleanest, who could afford the best daycare and the most expensive toys, or who spent the most time educating their children made her feel sick. How many inane puppet or animated virts was she supposed to sit through? She knew she was being mean and selfish, but she could not change how she felt.
She had painted her own depiction of Leda and the Swan. She had drawn Leda emaciated, her stomach bloated. Zeus the Swan was filthy, his molting feathers sprinkling his paramour’s scrawny thighs. He pressed into her from behind, his grimy wings pushing her down. His serpentine neck twisted around her body, and ate at her distended belly. She wondered if the Cylebs cared about her paintings, if they would analyze her, and judge her to be emotionally disturbed. Would they use them as an excuse to take her son away? She examined Leda’s tormented expression. She dipped her brush into a jar of thinner, and swirled the face into a raw mass of peach and white. She spread a thick, red pigment onto her palate, and painted a bright smiley face over the mess.
“See?” she shouted at the dome overhead. “See? She’s happy. She loves it. All normal and healthy.”
She added splotches of crimson to Leda’s stomach and Zeus’s cracked but almighty beak. Leda would probably have made a shitty mother anyway. Alyanna lifted the canvas from its easel, walked across her studio, and placed it on a stack of other finished works. It reached as high as her waist. She glanced at her watch again.
It was still five to one.
She stared at its second hand as it ticked its stuttered path around the tiny clock’s face. Though it completed its revolution, the minute hand remained on the numeral XI.
“That bitch,” she said. She threw the door open, and ran down the stairs.
“Bet I can swing higher than you,” said Matthew.
“Nope,” said Sigma. “Our swings’ chains are the same length.”
He kicked, pulled, and swung forward. He felt his weight against his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Bananas frolicking in the grass. “What if mine were longer?” he asked.
“Then you’d hit the ground.”
He pulled hard as he straightened his back. “What if we had a bigger swing set? Then I could have longer chains.”
She turned her head towards him without breaking her rhythm. “What if?”
He met her gaze. He realized there was something in the question that he was supposed to understand, but he was not sure what. “Can we ask the Sage for a bigger swing set?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Yes,” she said, “we could do that.”
“Sage,” he said, making his voice sound deep and important, “I command you to make my swing set bigger!” He waited a few seconds. Nothing happened.
“Hmm,” Sigma said. “That didn’t work.”
“No.”
A few seconds passed. “Why don’t you do it yourself?”
He dug his sneaker into the dirt, and his swing jerked to a halt. He stared at her. “How?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s like knowing how to walk. You don’t think about every little muscle, you just do it.”
Matthew kicked off again. He liked swinging, even though he was breathing hard from the exertion.
“Close your eyes,” she said. He did as he was told. He felt off–balance as he swung back, but kicked his legs in time to keep his momentum going. It was harder to swing this way. The fear of falling wormed its way into his mind. He pushed it aside.
“Think of it like stretching your arm,” she said. “You can do that, right?”
“Uh–huh.”
“Well, imagine you can stretch the A–frame supports like you stretch your arms, but don’t see it in your head. Feel it, as if it were a part of you.”
Matthew continued to swing in the darkness. The fear of falling melted away. The sensation of air rushing past him disappeared. He imagined the steel supports were part of his arms, that his limbs were tubes of hard, cool steel. He thrust them out, stretching—
His body veered sideways. He opened his eyes just as his swing knocked into Sigma’s, which had also careened to the side in mid–arc. They tumbled into the dirt and grass. One of her boots had landed on top of his chest, and he pushed it off. He sat up.
The leg of the A–fame nearest his swing was a foot longer than the other, making the entire swing set lean to one side. He walked towards it, his eyes wide.
His first impression was that the grass, dirt, and steel had melted together, and then stretched like taffy. But upon closer inspection, he saw that the components had transformed into one another. He ran his fingers over the distorted tubes. The grass had woven together to form a mesh that grew tighter, thinner, and harder, until it became steel. The dirt, coarse and crumbling on the ground, became finer as it melded with the metallic fabric. He felt Sigma’s soft, thick hair press against his cheek as she leaned in to examine his handiwork.
“That is amazing,” she said. “Many things have been created in the Sage by will, but never like this. You should be proud of yourself.” She tousled his hair, and he felt his face grow warm. “Of course,” she said, “you only extended one support and sent us flying, but it’s a start. Do you think you can control it?”
He stared at his creation. He opened his mouth to respond.
“What the hell is this?”
His stomach dropped as his mother slammed the back door, and ran into the yard. “Matthew, your knee is bleeding, and what happened to your swing set?”
He looked at his knee, noticing for the first time that it was scraped. He was about to say it was okay, when his mother stepped between him and Sigma, her nose inches away from the Cyleb’s.
“And you,” Alyanna said. “What are you doing here? What did you do to my son?”
“Mommy,” he said, “Sigma was—”
“Matthew, get inside,” his mother said.
“But I was just—”
“I told you to get inside,” said Alyanna, “you’re in enough trouble as it is.” She turned back to Sigma. “This is my home, and he is my son. What the hell makes you think you can come here without asking me first?”
The Cyleb did not say a word. She just gazed into Alyanna’s eyes, her face expressionless.
Matthew’s stomach churned. If only he could make her understand. “But Mommy, she—”
His mother grabbed his arm, spun him around, and swatted his buttocks three times. Tears sprang to his eyes.
“Get inside,” Alyanna said, every syllable slow and deliberate. “You are in so much trouble right now.” She turned her back on him.
She berated Sigma again, but Matthew did not hear. The world slowed around him. His mother’s words first became deep and stretched, and then they were just stuttering beeps and clicks. His chest felt as if a furnace raged inside him. He felt small, helpless, and humiliated, and it made him want to punch, kick, and hurt. His left shoulder burned, as if charred by coals, and stabbed by needles of lightning. He imagined his body tearing apart the way it had in the painting—
Matthew!
Sigma stood in front of him. The world had become tinged with scarlet. He heard her voice inside of his head. It was slow and deep, but he could just make out her words. Matthew, wake up.
The sky spun around his head. For a moment, he was certain that he was falling—and then the world snapped back to its normal speed and color. Bananas was sitting on her hind legs, licking his face. His shoulder felt as if someone had yanked his arm, and twisted it behind his back. He brushed it with his fingertips, and darts of pain shot through his skin. He jerked his hand away.
Alyanna pushed the dog aside, and wrapped her arms around him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” he said. He looked up.
The tubes of the swing set and the ground of the nearest A–frame had twisted and bulged, creating biceps and triceps fashioned from grass and steel. They bent at the upper joint like an elbow. The central beam had swollen into a muscular forearm, its once cheerfully painted enamel now blacke
ned and glistening in the afternoon sun. The other A–frame, along with the swings, had merged into a skeletal claw. It had raked furrows a foot deep into the ground, leaving blackened grass in its wake. The taut chains of the swings shot from the dirt to ensnare the knuckles, as if to safely bind the steel and plastic talons from further ravaging the earth. Matthew touched one of the gnarled digits. It was as hard as glass, and as cold as ice.
He called Sigma’s name, but she was no longer there. His mother stared at him. “What’s wrong?” he asked. He looked down at himself, and swallowed.
His shirt and pants had shrunk, squeezing his crotch and armpits. His sneakers and socks had ruptured, revealing toes that hung past the soles. He wiggled them. The ground was further away. It was as if the world had shrunk a foot.
“Mommy, what’s going on?”
Alyanna breathed in long, ragged gasps. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. His chest felt as if someone were sitting on him. He took a step back.
“I gotta go inside,” he said.
He limped upstairs to his room, and stripped off his tight clothes. His shirt had ripped in the back. He examined his naked shoulder. Its blurry, pixelated skin was bruised, but the bruises were faded and yellow. He wondered why, and the answer came into his head: They were already old and healing.
A new set of clothes had been laid on his bed. He pulled them on. They fit. A new set of sneakers were on the floor. His old ones had been white; these were blue, with a white zigzag in the middle. He dressed, and examined himself in the mirror.
He was one of the big kids, now.
He touched the reflection of the boy who could have been his older brother. “How old am I?” he asked.
“I’m guessing about seven or eight,” Sigma said. He knew that she had been there all along.