The Edger Collection

by David Beem

  “Right.”

  She blinks. “Gum. Get some gum for kissing. See? Always preparing.”

  The porno music sets in again, and this time, I let it stand.

  Yeah you do, says Nigel.

  I turn to go, but she grabs my arm.

  “And maybe a nice shade of blue nail polish, if they have it. Green is cool too.”

  “Right,” I say in my electronic superhero voice, and Killmaster adds it to the list.

  Again, I turn to go, but she turns me around by my elbow.

  “And Edger, you need to be faster than this. Think. We’re surrounded by zombies.”

  “Got it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The withered stump releases its decades of stored energy in whispering pops and the intimate, ropey scent of burning pine. The backs of my eyelids are a kaleidoscope of gold and red light. My cheeks are toasty, my butt cold. The hush of the waves is constant, and the night air raises goose bumps on my arms.

  “Last time you had a beach bonfire,” says Mary, and I open my eyes. Nut Kicker’s curled into a donut at her side.

  “Earth to Edger?”

  “After prom,” I answer, and the dog huffs. Mary scratches behind her ear.

  “What’s that?” she asks.

  “You never heard of an After Prom?”

  “Prom. That’s, what? A high school dance?”

  “How can you not know what a prom is?”

  Her eyebrows rise.

  “Oh,” I say, as my brain catches up to my mouth. “Sorry.”

  She shrugs it off. “It takes some getting used to. It took me a long time to get used to. All my memories that are, you know, really mine, are from before I was ten. That’s weird, right? I mean, how much do you remember from when you were ten?”

  My lips purse. Ten? Jeez. That’s, what? Fifth grade?

  “Most of my memories are my clone’s memories.” Firelight flickers across her smooth rosy cheeks, and her gaze turns inward. She inhales through her mouth and breathes out through her nose.

  “Mary,” I say, unsure of how to ask what I want to ask. “You call her Blythe…your clone, I mean.” Her attention refocuses on me.

  “But you think Blythe is my name,” she finishes for me, arching an eyebrow.

  “Well… I mean, no,” I answer, leaving off the “but yeah.”

  “I was born with the name Blythe. I was murdered as Blythe. My clone stole my name. My identity. She lived seventeen years as Blythe Watson. I got ten. So, when I came back…” She shrugs again.

  “You couldn’t use that name anymore.”

  “I couldn’t use that name anymore.”

  The fire pops and releases another round of glowing embers. I track one, the magical way it circles toward the stars, and I’m stricken by a wave of déjà vu. Except it isn’t déjà vu. I’m imagining soul-stars, I guess.

  Dad?

  What’s on your mind, son? he replies, but we both know he already knows what’s on my mind. Sorry, he says. You’re thinking Mary believes she’s the reincarnation of the little girl who was murdered.

  But that’s a psychological defense mechanism or something, right? I ask. I mean, how do clones organize conflicting memories, instincts, and the rest of what it is to be human?

  Who’re you supposed to be now? asks Nigel. You think you’re Plato, do you? If you need a hobby, try Balloon Artistry.

  Not now, Nigel, I reply.

  Through the Collective Unconscious, I can sense Dad and the others solving, like a massive quantum computer, the equation that is the woman I love. How she found the cloaking device and slipped it into her lab coat minutes after being cloned. How they admire her foresight for staying hidden from Nostradamus. Also, they’re astonished her mind isn’t folded the way other clones’ minds are.

  Her soul is identical to the child’s, says Dad. The little girl they killed. The original Blythe Watson.

  My stomach knots. I steal a sideways peek at Mary. The firelight is playing over her long slender limbs as she hugs her knees, rests her chin on top, and peers into its mystic depths. The dog scoots closer into her hip. She smiles and runs her hand along her fluffy coat.

  You’re saying I’m in love with a little girl?

  Dad laughs. Oh no. She’s a woman, Edge. A hybrid of her clone’s experiences and the conscience she had as a kid. She knows true north, son. She’s a good person. I’m happy for you.

  “What is it?” she asks, catching me staring.

  I sit up straighter and meet her probing stare. “It’s nothing.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she says, and the bonfire issues another pop. “You’ve got a life out there. Your Gran and Shep. Fabio. The Über Dork. You must feel a pull to get back to normal.”

  “Ha! You are vastly overestimating the quality of life at the Über Dork.”

  “But me?” she says, like I wasn’t just talking. “There’s just you.”

  The bottom of my stomach falls out, and a squadron of kamikazes storms through the hole. I’m short of air, so I take a long breath as quietly as I can. She lowers her knees, and her feet cross. The dog’s drowsy head comes up. She sniffs the air, then lays her chin over Mary’s knee and her paw over her snout.

  “I mean, assuming we can find these rebels,” she continues. “I don’t know how my parents will react to me. They’ll know about Blythe the assassin. The horrors she’s done. Her allegiance to Nostradamus. I look like her.”

  “Are you kidding? They’ll be overjoyed to have you back.”

  Her glassy eyes meet mine.

  “Mary.” I take her hand. “You’re a miracle. Most people get to be a miracle once, when they’re born. But you? You got to be a miracle twice. Well, three times. You’re kind of an ongoing miracle for me.”

  Her lopsided smile returns. “I don’t know how you do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “You finally know my big secret, me being a clone but not a clone.” She shakes her head, then hurries on. “I mean, okay, that makes it sound like I don’t know what I am, but—”

  “Not what—who,” I say. “Who you are is you. The good person sitting in front of me.”

  “See?” She rolls her eyes. “This. This is what you do. This is why you’re my one and only. You have faith in me when I don’t have faith in myself.” She takes a slow, steady breath. “Do I want to find my parents? Of course. But at the same time, you’re the only constant in my life since I came back like this. A grown woman.”

  “Please don’t let this be the part where you tell me you love me like a brother.”

  “Um… No.” Her chin tilts down. “This is where I tell you I’m tired of saving the world. This is where I tell you maybe things are better the way things are. Maybe we’re better off spending our remaining days on this earth like this. Together. Here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How’s that again?” I ask, and a force like the power of the breaking dawn rises inside me. Her lashes sweep up. My blood surges. Goose bumps break out all over, and I shudder. I grit my teeth against the burning inside, squeeze my elbows in to stop the shaking. My vision tunnels. I’m losing control. If something doesn’t happen soon, I don’t know what I’ll do. I try to force myself to relax, but the shaking may as well be hypothermia, even in the fire’s heat.

  My subconscious lobs a glimpse of me snatching her into my arms and going all From Here to Eternity on her, right here, right now. She grabs a stick and pokes a log. It falls, and a gust of embers rises. She crosses her arms, absentmindedly angling the stick toward me. I cast around for another stick, but she’s got the only one.

  “We can’t turn our backs on the rebels,” she whispers. “But they’ve got to be wondering too if things aren’t better off than they were before.”

  My leaping pulse is desperate and uneven. “Maybe.”

  Every crackle and pop from the fire is like cracking whips urging me to act. The positions of the stars, the brightness of the moon, the number of waves between
here and the horizon seem somehow hyperreal.

  “Is it worth risking nuclear war?” she asks.

  I shrink back on my haunches in the sand. Fiji. A blast of light before the wormhole snapped shut. I swallow to work the moisture back into my mouth. I’m too ashamed to speak.

  Her eyebrows rise. “The population’s under control. World peace. Green energy. Everyone’s got a job. There’s no more famine. Edger. What are we fighting?”

  “Maybe he’d give us the rebels if we asked,” I say, the words escaping my mouth like thieves. “And Fabio and Caleb. I bet he’d be willing to give them an island somewhere.”

  Her forehead tightens. Her eyebrow arches.

  “We could maybe negotiate for a separate portion of the human race,” I say, hurrying forward. “Maybe on Mars or something. I don’t know. The entire human race working together? We could get something going on Mars, I bet. He could have Earth. Maybe the rebels live free on an island until Mars is ready.”

  Her shoulders slump, and she tosses her stick aside. “Oh my God. What’re we even saying?”

  “It’s crazy, it’s crazy.” I nod, then shake my head. “But it’s, I mean, well, it’s like you said. Is it worth risking nuclear war?”

  “It’s such a beautiful world. It’s everything. This choice means everything.”

  “Mary. I need to know something.” Pause. Breathe. Nothing to do now but force the words out. “That date… That date we planned never materialized.”

  Her gaze drops, and I hurry before my courage vanishes.

  “You know, when we said we’d go out, I thought, yeah, cool. That’s where we’re going. There was a plan in front of us, and it kind of helped me make sense of pushing ahead. Because, hey, this may come as a surprise to you, but I don’t get out of bed in the morning to get shot at.”

  Her gaze comes up. Her lips quirk.

  “But it wasn’t until I thought I’d lost you,” I continue, “that it hit me the things behind us. All we’ve been through together. And that’s when I realized I never asked you a certain question. A very important—but basic—certain question.” I swallow and hold my breath. “Mary. Do you love me?”

  All the remaining blood seems to drain from her unchanging face. Her hands are clasped in her lap, her knuckles white. My insides wilt like that Dali painting with the melted clocks. The back of my neck starts burning.

  “Oh, boy,” I say, and still her face doesn’t change. I release a deep breath, tilt my head back, and peer at the stars. For once, the Collective Unconscious is silent. Man, Mary’s right. Courage is different when there’s real fear. Let alone rejection. “Wow.” I release another useless burst of air. “I guess I’m just trying to figure out whether we should stay here or go save the world, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, it’s like you said. World peace. Green energy.”

  “No, Edger,” she says, her knuckles relaxing. “I mean yes.”

  She scoots over next to me, her eyes softening.

  My breath catches in my chest. I sit up straighter.

  “Edger, the truth is, I’ve loved you since I first set eyes on you. You make me weak when we talk. You make me happy. You’re funny, sweet. I even think about you before I clean my rifle—no—in a good way.” She smiles and peers into her lap, and when her lashes again sweep up, her guard has fallen. “I can’t let you die. I love you. I am hopelessly in love with you.”

  I lean back, take a deep breath.

  She tilts her head.

  My heart’s hammering so fast, it hurts. Her lips part. I lean in, and it’s all dopamine and Mary scent. Her hair falls against my cheek as I brush her lips with mine. Once. Twice. She wiggles closer. I wrap my arms around her, spreading my fingers across her slender back, pulling her into me. Her soft breasts press against my chest and tip the world off its axis. Our mouths meet. I lick the seam of her lips, and she opens. My tongue strokes hers—

  —the world explodes into a billion streaking lights—

  —soul-stars zoom past, their screams deafening. Billions of white-hot pinpricks, the lives of everyone who has ever lived, race like electricity through the neural connections in my brain—

  Edger! screams Mary from inside my head. Edger!

  —silver pinpoints of light; my head vibrating; Mary’s voice—

  What’s happening?!

  I try to pull out of the kiss, but it’s too late. We’re tumbling sideways into a bed of stardust. Raining silver showers shine against the dark void beyond. We blast through still-forming constellations, two soul-stars, joined.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The minute hand on the break room wall reaches zero-zero with the force of Mjölnir summoning thunder. Wang springs from his chair, races to the door. Through the narrow rectangular window, glowing blue lights shine from technology-lined shelves onto the darkened sales floor. The iconic neon orange Über Dork sign is dark. The security gate is down.

  Hot, sulfuric breath mists over his neck. He jabs his elbow backward, wheels around. Shmuel falls over a chair, which crashes on its back. The pig squeals and darts out of the way. Wang scowls.

  “Would you quit fooling around?”

  Shmuel rubs a hand into his ribs. “Ouch?”

  “Next time, maybe don’t breathe down my neck like a beat-boxing hooker. How ’bout that?”

  He turns to peer into the store again. Would zombies hide? Could it be a trap? Tapping hooves approach from behind, followed by Shmuel’s unmistakable body odor.

  “They closed at eight?”

  “I know.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock?”

  “Congratulations. You can tell time.”

  “That means it’s curfew time?”

  Wang frowns. That’s what it means, all right. Why Nostradamus shuts the city down at the stroke of eleven is anyone’s guess. If he had been in charge, it’d be twenty-four seven party hearty.

  “The ghost is clear?” says Shmuel.

  Wang’s shoulders slump.

  “What?” asks Shmuel.

  “Coast. The coast is clear.”

  “But so are ghosts? Anyway, we should go? You’re too suspicious all the time?”

  He narrows his eyes. “It’s what keeps me alive. Besides. I don’t like what I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t live like that?”

  “No shit, Shmuel, given you understand any random thing about as much as that snack machine.”

  Not waiting for a reply, he inches the break room door open and creeps into the darkened store. Hunching beneath the cell phone aisle, he passes the chargers and accessories display, passes the home theater room, pauses to whistle at the McIntosh XR100 Floor Standing Speakers on sale for five thousand dollars. Could we get those to the van without setting off an alarm? He turns to signal to Shmuel, but the human man boob and the pig are nowhere to be found. Wang is standing in the middle of the Über Dork sales floor alone.

  He peers over the top of a Blu-ray display. The break room door is shut.

  “Da fuck?”

  He marches across the sales floor, grabs the door handle, flings it back. Shmuel and that pig are at the snack machine. Shmuel straightens from the dispenser, rips open the bag of Cheetos, and sets it on the floor for Pig.

  “Spy Pig and I were talking?” he says. “What if Zarathustra doesn’t save the world? What if we steal all the contraceptors and it’s all for nod?”

  “Contraception. All for naught.”

  “Mm-hmm. So what if we steal all the contra exceptions and Zarathustra doesn’t save the world? We will not be able to get rich, because the zombies will not buy them?”

  “We don’t have time for this,” says Wang.

  “We’ve got seven hours of curfew? That’s plenty of time for us to Ron-day view with Consuelo?”

  “Rendezvous.”

  “That’s what I said?”

  “No. You said Ron-day, like Ron gets his own fucking days of the week.”

  “Who’s Ron?”<
br />
  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “You’re the one who brought him up?”

  “Shut up! The world is ending! Don’t you get it? Whether Zarathustra manages to save it or not doesn’t matter because I am going to live my life on the presumption he is. And that means pulling out all the stops. Ergo, we loot the Temple of Cock Block and at least pretend to fulfill my dream of getting filthy rich. Do you understand?”

  The pig nods, but Shmuel frowns and scratches his head. “Wherego?”

  Wang’s fury erupts in a whoosh like kerosene. “I will not become a zombie! Zombies are shit givers! I have dedicated my life to the eradication of shit giving!”

  Shmuel’s frown deepens, and Wang’s shoulders slump again.

  “Eradication. It means ‘getting rid of.’”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Don’t you see?” continues Wang, sliding his arm over Shmuel’s shoulders and thrusting an open hand out like a carnival barker. “Out there is a world of would-be shit givers! All of them dying to give a shit! And for what? What did these so-called contributing members of society ever contribute?”

  “Apps?”

  “Huh? No! Not apps.”

  Shmuel pulls out his phone and unlocks the screen. “I don’t know where I’d be without my apps. This one is a virtual stapler? And this one cures hair loss? And this one tells me if it’s dark outside by using the letters Y-E-S if it is dark outside or N-O if it isn’t?”

  Wang blinks. “They’ve got apps for that?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Shmuel smiles and holds his phone up for a picture. “And don’t forget the selfies? The shit givers did give us the selfies?”

  “Hey. Hey, you know what? You’re goddamn right, Shmuel!”

  Shmuel smiles, then frowns. He lowers the phone, swipes, taps the screen. He presses the corner of his phone into his front teeth.

  Wang frowns. “What’re you doing now?”

  Shmuel lowers the phone. “Toothpick app. Doesn’t work, though?”

  “Of course not. It came from the shit givers, didn’t it? Useless apps and selfies.”