Time and Chance

by Jeff Mariotte

  Several hours later, the tone-deaf humming" of a janitor penetrated both the walls of the men's room stall in which he had sought refuge, and the psychic walls he had thrown up against the wide world. He peered out through the crack between the door and the wall and saw a pimply-faced, skinny kid in a brown uniform refilling the paper towel dispenser. A cart with supplies and a big plastic trashcan filled the doorway.

  Instantly, he knew three things. One, that the mall's stores had closed for business while he'd been holed up. Two, that he was something much different than ordinary men, much more than they. His power over probability confirmed that. He needed only an act, to begin to make his belief a reality. And three, he knew what that act would be.

  The chance of being caught was slim enough. He flipped back the lock, emerged from the stall. The janitor barely spared him a glance.

  "Mall's closed, dude," he said.

  "I know," Thomas Carlisle said. He moved as if heading toward the door, then suddenly spun and lunged. His open hands caught the back of the janitor's head and drove him face-first into the mirror over the sinks. Glass cracked and the cracks filled with blood.

  The janitor let out a gasp, and Carlisle turned him around, relishing the blood that streamed from his forehead, his nose, his pulped lips, a three-inch gash in his cheek.

  "What—?" the janitor started to say. Carlisle grabbed a glass bottle of window cleaner from his cart and swung it into the kid's damaged face.

  When he left the men's room, the mall was empty. It was almost pleasant, but the space still disturbed him. He hurried to his hotel room.

  Now, with the serum flaming through his system, he thought he could almost smell a faint whiff of ammonia, the scent that he always associated with that day. But he knew it was an illusion.

  The aroma of power.

  That had been his first killing.

  Not, by any means, his last.

  His stomach heaved as his flesh swelled, shoved beyond its normal confines by ballooning muscle. Every part of him hurt, but the pain, he knew, was precursor to something else, and well worth it.

  He looked at Suzanne through narrowed eyes. He could feel the skin of his forehead stretching, his brow enlarging. Her eyes were wide with wonder at his change.

  And then it was over. The fire cooled. Wager's body was enormous, his muscles chiseled. He radiated strength. All his life he had lived in fear of the physically imposing, and now he was the ultimate specimen.

  But he knew that was just the beginning of his power. The merest surface dressing.

  Cipher, once the change had come over him, had been able to tear through his restraints.

  Cipher, compared to him, was insignificant. He didn't need to break his bonds.

  He thought his way through them.

  One moment, they held his arms to the chair's, his legs to its base. But Wager's power over probability had changed, he understood. Where once he had been able to compute odds, he could now control them. He could make the impossible possible, the unreal real.

  For his first demonstration, he turned the steel straps that held him down into gossamer ribbons, then the gossamer into butterfly wings.

  His bindings flew into the air, circled around him twice, and vanished.

  He rose.

  Suzanne's usual self-assurance was shattered. She stared, open-mouthed at Wager. He loomed over her now.

  "My God," she breathed.

  "Yes," Wager said. "I am."

  A few minutes later, Wager walked out of his lair, into the light of day. The street was wide but quiet, with a few cars and a bus passing by on a distant boulevard. The sun shone down through the chill air.

  He was outside. He was in the world. And he was not afraid.

  Everything he had worked for, since the day he left prison, was coming to a head. Plans set in motion long ago were playing out, just as he'd known they would. He would have everything that he deserved, would taste of every pleasure, would see the world's criminals bowing at his feet.

  There was only one small loose end to deal with. And that would be no problem at all.

  Roxy was jazzed. Mackey's sister, Belinda, had called just before dinner and told her that she should drop by the Blackout tonight. She and Mackey had first met at that club, and Roxy now knew that everything was going to be all right. She had worried about her relationship with the drummer for nothing.

  She sat in the living room, listening to Caitlin and Sarah going at it, absently beating a rhythm on her leather stretch pants, her purple bangs falling into her eyes.

  Her motions ceased when she saw the content, easy smile of Grunge. It was a look he only got two ways. If he had just gotten a nice buzz on, or if—

  "I got a date, can we get over this, already?" Grunge asked.

  Roxy sighed. She knew it shouldn't have bothered her, but it did. "What, are you paying by the hour?"

  Grunge's face flushed. "I'm going out with Michele. The editor. She works at one of those big houses on Fifth Avenue."

  Roxy waited.

  "It was on her card."

  "You learned how to read?"

  Grunge rolled his eyes. "I'm in too good a mood, Roxy." He put his huge arms behind his head and angled his head from left to right, the bones making little cracking noises.

  The card, Roxy thought. Then it all fell into place for her. The woman on the street. The one he had helped get her purse back.

  She checked her watch. "Okay, so you've got a date with a New York book editor. The talking part of the evening should be over in about fifteen minutes. Then what?"

  Grunge shook his head. "Yer jealous."

  "Am not!" Roxy spat. She leaned forward on her stool and nearly tipped over. "I've got a date, too!"

  Sarah raised her hands. "Quiet, both of you! We're discussing a major issue. Gen13 needs to—"

  Grunge got up and belched. "I'll tell you what this little Gen-Active needs to do. One long glorious pee, then I'm out of here."

  "Not on the carpet this time," Roxy said.

  Grunge brushed past her. "Hope your little drum boy doesn't have any problem with his stick."

  She kicked at his finely rounded backside, but he was out of range before she could connect. She considered using her gravity powers to make the bathroom door too heavy for him to push open, then decided against it. He probably would use the carpet.

  The bathroom door slammed.

  Caitlin shook her head. "What is it with you two? This is serious business."

  Roxy sprang to her feet and snatched up her leather jacket. "Last time I checked, having a life was pretty serious business, too. Later!"

  She left without looking back.

  On the street, waiting for the doorman to flag down a taxi for her, Roxy felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cool night air.

  She had acted like a ten-year-old up there. Grunge had that effect on her. And he was right, she was more than a little jealous.

  But she had Mackey…

  A yellow cab sped to the curb. The doorman moved to get the door for her, but she was too fast for him, getting it herself and sliding into the car before he could manage to do more than fade back to his post. She gave the driver the club's address, then settled back for the drive.

  "Young love," the driver said. He was young, with curly black hair and a bad case of acne. "I can always tell."

  "Yeah, whatever, you wanna put on the radio or something?" Roxy asked.

  "Oh, okay" the driver said. "Young love on the skids. I get it…"

  For the next eighteen minutes, he talked about relationships. Every woman he had ever dated, failed marriages his friends had suffered through, kinky encounters in the back of his cab, only one of which he had anything to do with…

  Roxy tried to tune him out, but couldn't. He was about two sexist jokes away from having her fly out the rear window and stiff him for the fare when he pulled up outside the club.

  Roxy tossed him a twenty and didn't look back. There was a line at the
front of the club. The checker recognized her and let her through immediately, over the cries and complaints of the those who had been waiting for a chance to get in.

  She found Belinda tending the smoke-filled bar. The pulsating techno-reggae was so loud they had to shout to be heard. The place was packed with the tattooed and pierced flesh of wall-to-wall pretty people. The lights strobed and occasionally flashed in Roxy's eyes.

  "So where's Mackey?" Roxy asked.

  "Seattle."

  Roxy recoiled. "What?"

  Belinda smiled. "Seattle. Some session work. He just packed his gear and took off. I only found out because he blew all his cash on the airfare and needed me to wire him more."

  Roxy's chest was on fire. It felt hard to breathe.

  "Hey, come on, don't take it like that," Belinda said. "He didn't tell you he loved you or anything, did he?"

  Roxy shook her head.

  "Good. I told him I'd kick his ass if he did that again when he was just having fun."

  "Having fun," Roxy whispered. She was in shock. Was it because she was a Gen-Active? She had seen the way he had looked at her after the fight at the club.

  He had seen. He knew. There probably was no gig in Seattle, he had just wanted to get away—

  "Hey, I'm sorry," Belinda said. She set Roxy up with something to settle her nerves. "What's a Gen-Active?"

  Roxy looked up. "How—"

  "I can read lips. Occupational necessity," Belinda said.

  "Oh, you didn't realize you were talking to yourself. Sorry."

  Roxy ran her hands over her face, not caring if she ruined her make-up.

  "Listen," Belinda said. "I asked you to come by because I didn't want Kim or Len or any of those guys to swing by and tell you about it, then try to get into your pants, working the sympathy angle. I've seen that one enough times when Mackey pulls this. I think they have it all worked out or something. Jerks."

  Roxy looked up. "He's done this before?"

  Belinda nodded. "It's kind of a standard dating hazard when you go with a boy in the band. And he always seems to zero in on the ones who wouldn't know that. No offense, but—"

  "You're right," Roxy said. She picked up her drink. "Men are scum."

  Belinda poured one for herself and toasted with her. "Yeah. To scum."

  Their glasses clinked.

  "Grunge?" Michele asked, drawing back her drink and taking a sip after their toast. It had been to justice. She'd asked if he was serious. He'd asked if a guy named Grunge would lie to her, which made her giggle, then repeat his name. "Grunge," she said again. "Really?"

  He shrugged. They were in a nice restaurant, the kind of place he figured she'd enjoy. There was a piano player, a fountain, a pretty view, a pair of winding circular staircases, and a menu with prices that would have made him keel over if he had been paying for it.

  Go get 'em, Mr. Lynch. The Platinum Visa parade salutes you.

  "My full name is Percival Edmund Chang. I got the name Grunge when I was on the circuit. Surfin' and stuff."

  "I'm afraid to ask why," Michele said. But he could tell she wasn't afraid at all. She was intrigued.

  And she was gorgeous. She wore a simple, elegant black dress, a sparkling necklace, and stiletto heels. He was the shortest member of Gen13, and without the spikes, he and Michele would have been about the same height.

  "I can't wait to dance with you," he said.

  "Why wait for anything?"

  They got up and danced a slow, wonderful dance. Then a fast number came on and Grunge started acting like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Michele loved it. She could only barely keep up and the whole time she didn't even try to stop herself from laughing.

  They got back to the table, where their meal was waiting. Grunge pulled at the collar of his monkey suit. "Armani," he said. "Not me."

  She looked down at her evening gown. "The last time I wore this was our company Christmas party. The last company I worked for. With all the down-sizing and mergers and stuff…" She shrugged. "I'm sure you don't want to hear about that."

  "I want to hear anything you want to tell me," Grunge said.

  She stared at him. "I think you mean it."

  Actually, he did.

  The evening went on magically. Dinner was sensational. There was more dancing.

  Michele talked the whole evening. Grunge just let her take in his Californian surfer 'hide, while he genuinely listened to every word she had to say, taking more interest in her life and her work then he would have thought possible.

  They walked back to her apartment. She shivered and he draped his jacket around her shoulders.

  "Anyway, New York publishing isn't so bad. I was a D-girl in Hollywood for three years before I moved here. That was hell."

  Grunge cocked his head to one side. "You mean—you were like in those movies with Brinke Stevens, those, y'know, Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray flicks? Beverly Hills Bordello, Bad Girls from Mars, like that?"

  She elbowed him one for that. "Hah. Real funny."

  He'd been serious, but he smiled and acted like he was in on the joke.

  "Anyway, they talk about movies being in development hell. They don't know the meaning of that phrase. I'd spend my every evening, every weekend, reading these scripts, and my God, were they garbage. Of course, then there was that one time I had this little script called Shakespeare in Love in my hands, but the producer I worked for said costume dramas don't make any bucks, so we passed… Smart, huh?"

  Now he got it. D-girl. Development offices. Right…

  She kept talking. Soon they were in her apartment. It was a cramped one bedroom, which cost her fourteen hundred a month.

  "I just got promoted to full editor two months ago," Michele said. "Couldn't afford this place before then. I still do some part-time work to make it all come together."

  The floors were bare wood, and the place hardly had any furnishings. Her TV had dials on it.

  Damn.

  "I know," she said, reading his expression. "New York book editor. Not what you'd expect."

  "Lots of things aren't what you'd expect. Can I show you something?"

  She nodded. He took off his shirt, revealing his chiseled, barrel-chested physique and his amazing eagle tattoo. A part of him worried that she might get all embarrassed or worried considering what he'd just done, but she took in the view with some undisguised interest and patiently waited for him to make his point.

  "When you look like me, people think you'd only go to the library to use the bathroom."

  "And to write socially conscious rhetoric there."

  "Exactly. Hell, most people would have thought I wasn't that far off from that creep who took your bag."

  She flushed at the mention of that.

  "See?" he said. "Your cheeks are red. That is what you were thinking."

  She shook her head. "No." She was smiling. "Just about how cool it was when you took that guy down for me. And how much fun it was kicking the son of a bitch."

  He grinned. "Michele, I think I could fall in love with you."

  And at that moment, he really thought he might.

  Only…

  What happened when she found out what he really was?

  She turned and ran her hands over his bare chest, then leaned in and kissed him open-mouthed.

  Grunge felt his skin nearly crackle with the fiery energies her kiss released within him. He shuddered as her tongue caressed his. His massive arms encircled her small form and he felt her shaking as she pulled away from the kiss.

  "I've been hurt," she said.

  He nodded.

  "We can have fun, but I want to go slow. I don't want to rush things too much."

  Grunge bit his lip lightly. "Yeah."

  "You're good with that? Really?"

  He remembered the look of horror and revulsion in his date's eyes last night. Then he took Michele in his arms. "As a matter of fact, I am…"

  They kissed, and the horns blaring on the street and sirens from a
few blocks off melted away and formed a moonlit sonata, accompanied by the trip-hammering of his heart.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The morning sun slanted down the cross streets, shining into Cipher's eyes at every intersection as he trudged up Sixth Avenue. He could have taken a car—Wager had plenty to spare—or even a cab, but he preferred walking. He was used to Manhattan's streets; he thrived on the noise, the din of traffic and of the endless streams of people, their voices raised in anger, in passion, in fear—the staccato beat of his city's heart.

  This morning he took delight in moving unseen up the stream, an invisible salmon heading for spawning grounds. Except what he was on his way to accomplish had nothing to do with spawning. Quite the opposite.

  Wager believed he had a lead on where those annoying young people might be found. Gen13, they called themselves. Cipher swallowed once, remembering Bobby. He was a good kid, but the past was past and there was nothing now but tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, a different world from the one he'd known even a week before. Bobby had befriended Joe Monteleone, a man of the streets.

  Joe didn't exist any more. He might as well be dead.

  Which was what Bobby would be, as soon as Cipher found Gen13's headquarters. Wager wouldn't make him do it himself. But Cipher knew that Wager wanted Gen13 out of the way, and once he'd located them, Wager would send in his troops to take them out. It wasn't the way Cipher would have wanted Bobby and Sarah to end up.

  But there was nothing he could do about it.

  His mood was dark, in spite of the morning's brightness.

  A salesman, late for a meeting, sample case slapping against his leg as he ran, was about to walk through Cipher. The man couldn't see him, of course. But he smelled like terror and desperation, flop sweat, and Cipher found himself offended by the man. So at the last instant he restored his physical body and the guy bumped into him.

  "Sorry," the little man said, his head wagging apologetically. His tie was tied too tight and his jacket was too large; it looked like a suit bought when he'd been fat and successful, that no longer fit since he'd become scared and nervous.

  Cipher grabbed the guy's necktie, yanked it even tighter. When he shook the man, his sample case flew up at the end of his rubbery arm and bounced off Cipher's shoulder. "Watch where you're going," he snarled. He touched his uniform—the guy's heavy case had collided with his comm unit.