Prime Identity

by Robert Schmitt

  A beer bottle smashed into the ground a yard away from my feet, causing my head to snap toward the man who had lobbied it toward me. I had learned, within the first five minutes of arriving at the protest, the prudence of crafting a bubble of heavily curved spacetime between me and the protesters, which would cause anything thrown toward me to veer off course and into the ground instead. The protester, who had thrown the bottle in a perfect arc toward the side of my head, blinked in dumbfounded shock as my eyes locked on him.

  I held my hand out and drew in all the dull purple lines of spacetime radiating from him to lift him a few feet off the ground as I pulled him away from the crowd of bodies toward me. Maybe I should have been more patient with him, but after being splattered half a dozen times by shattered bottles and other trash, I found my patience had been worn bare.

  The other protesters hissed and booed as I dropped the man onto the pavement next to me. For his part, the man seemed to regain some of his composure at finding himself back with the ground underfoot. He spit on my foot as one of the police officers nearest me hurried forward to handcuff and lead him away.

  With a snap of gravity, I pulled the saliva off my boot and flicked it onto the ground.

  “Incredible,” a voice said in my ear, crisp and clear despite the noise of the crowd all around me. “You’ve spent over two months living as a prime, but you still think these crazy bigots are right. You still hate primes.”

  “Kiara.” I tapped the side of my helmet to transmit over my radio, overcome by a foreboding chill. “The Syndicate’s here.”

  “What happened?” Kiara’s voice was urgent in my ear. “How can you tell?”

  “What do you think telling her is going to accomplish?” The voice in my ear sounded amused.

  “The mind smith from the school is here.” I pulled myself into the air on a pocket of gravity, then scanned the crowd as far as I could see.

  “You have a visual?” Kiara asked.

  “No.” I dropped back to the ground, then jogged along the edge of the crowd as my gaze darted through the mass of people. “She’s talking to me in my head.”

  “What?” Kiara sounded, if possible, even more worried. “Amber, stop whatever you’re doing, right now. If she’s in your head, she can—”

  “That’s enough of that.” The woman’s voice cut across Kiara’s.

  It would only occur to me much later that the mind smith had messed with my ability to hear, but in the heat of the moment, all I could focus on was my burning hatred.

  “You still want to kill me, don’t you?” She sounded mildly surprised.

  “You bombed a school.”

  “Good thing you and your friend were there to save those children then, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine what would have happened if one of your daughters was hurt. But no. There’s something more, too, isn’t there? Don’t try to lie to me, Amber. I don’t remind you of anyone? Something to do with your parents, perhaps? My, my. Looks like the famed Gravita is a little... delusional. Let’s hope no one finds out about that.”

  “Where are you?” I shouted, causing a few of the people near me to stare as I ran past.

  “Oh? If you wanted to find me, all you had to do was ask.”

  I jetted into the air on a pocket of warped spacetime as the mind smith put the impression of a direction into my mind. Within seconds, I rocketed to the street I had recognized in my mind’s eye as being only a few blocks away from the protest.

  She was standing in the middle of the alley, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched me slam down onto the ground a few feet away.

  “You’re under arrest.” I held out my hand to warp the spacetime all around her, though to my shock, nothing happened.

  “Oh, no powers.” She clicked her tongue. “That wouldn’t be very fair, now would it? In fact, let’s take that helmet off.”

  “What?”

  I frowned, a strange buzzing filling my ears. I lifted my hands up to pull my helmet off, the better to think as the buzzing became overpowering. I blinked to try and clear my vision, which had gone hazy. The sound of my helmet clattering to the ground startled me, and as I looked down at it, the buzzing grew even louder. Had I taken off my helmet?

  “There.” She smiled and leaned forward to whisper in my ear, even as she put something into my hand. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. Go ahead.”

  I squinted down at the syringe she had given me, and the buzzing in my mind congealed for an ephemeral moment to an irrepressible compulsion as I processed what she had told me to do. Without another thought, I lifted the syringe to my neck, pricked it into my vein, and slowly pushed down the plunger. I grit my teeth as the liquid burned its way down my neck. I was just able to stifle a scream from the pain.

  “Shh, I know it hurts.” She put her arm around me, and I snapped my eyes open to focus on her. “You might want to lay down. The pain is about to get a lot worse.”

  I nodded and lowered myself to the ground before laying flat on my back.

  “Goodbye, Amber. I’m... I’m sorry.”

  I knit my eyebrows together as I studied the pain and regret on her face, confusion setting in as the buzzing in my head faded away. What was I doing on the ground? Where was...

  I opened my mouth to speak, but then stopped. A scream gurgled up from the back of my throat as pain unlike anything I had ever experienced before seared across my body. It gripped my skin and so much deeper. It clung to the marrow inside my bones, lighting every possible inch of me in such excruciating pain that I found it impossible to even breathe. The scream that had been building in the back of my throat died as I tried and failed to suck in any air. This was agony beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Mercifully, within seconds the pain grew to such an impossibly agonizing level that my brain refused to process any more. Before I could do anything else, the bliss, chill numbness of shock overcame me, and I rolled my head to the side. My eyes slid shut as my mind was plunged into darkness.

  The first thing that came back to me was the pain. It wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been, but it was still enough to make me wish I could somehow stop myself from breathing.

  “Amber?” Kiara’s voice was faint, but as I focused on it, it helped pull me out of the churning shadows swirling around me.

  I opened my eyes to see a bright light shining down on me from far above. As I focused my gaze on it, the motion of my eyes from that simple act alone was enough to send pain flashing through my skull. Bracing myself for another surge of pain, I opened my mouth to speak.

  “What happened?” I barely recognized my own voice as I spoke, and my throat screamed in outrage, but regardless, Kiara seemed to understand my question.

  “The mind smith injected you with a serum of nanoscale robots,” she explained as she stroked my hair. “The last of them should have just burned out of your system, but from the few we were able to study before they decomposed, their design matches Doctor Quantum’s style. We’re waiting on confirmation from Epsilon Corp., but I think it’s safe to say the Syndicate got that serum from their raid of the lab a week ago. The one we busted.”

  “Why—”

  “Don’t try to talk,” she chided. “You need to rest. You’re probably in an insane amount of pain right now.

  “To answer your question, though, we don’t have any idea why they did this. We have a pretty good idea what the nano-machines did to you, but that’s only left us with more questions about why they did it.

  “The serum seems to have affected your gene expression, especially at the regions of your genome that are responsible for your powers. While we can’t say with certainty what that will mean, it’s likely you’re going to have dramatically stronger powers now.”

  Despite the pain, I forced myself into a sitting position as she spoke. She seemed frustrated that I was ignoring her advice, but she helped me up all the same.

  “Water,” I finally managed to croak out. I pushed myself to my feet and turned to her.<
br />
  “One more thing first.” She bit her lower lip, then shook her head. “The serum seems to have reset your biological clock at the cellular level. The telomeres on your chromosomes are longer now than those of embryonic stem cells, and from the divisions we’ve seen from your cells, it looks as though you’re aging at about one-eighth the normal rate.”

  I stared at her for a long moment, unsure of why she felt the need to tell me that, especially at the moment. “Okay? I appreciate the science lesson, but my throat’s killing me. Can you just...”

  After another moment’s hesitation, she nodded toward the bathroom off to the side of the room. As I limped up from the bed, I put together all the clues around me to surmise we were in the infirmary at the hub. Knowing that, together with the number of tests they had obviously run on me while I was unconscious, I knew I had to have been out for hours, at the very least.

  “I probably should mention the most obvious side effect of the serum.” Her voice was just audible over the running water of the sink as I dipped my head down to the faucet and took a few greedy gulps.

  “What’s that?” I asked, my throat soothed by the water. My voice, though, still sounded a little off—a little higher than usual. Remembering the pain I had been in, it was probably because I had screamed myself hoarse. But then, wouldn’t it be lower?

  “Well...”

  As I bent forward to take another gulp of water, the reflection in the mirror in front of me made me stop to do a second take.

  I choked out the water in my mouth as realization set in. The reflection in the mirror, which was doubled over the sink and gagging on water, was a redheaded girl who didn’t look a day over fifteen.

  16

  I GOT HOME AROUND SIX in the morning the next day. As it turned out, I had been unconscious for hours due to the tax the serum had put on my body. Added to that, the administrators had insisted I go through hours of psycho-analytical testing after my brush with the mind smith, since she could have left lasting suggestions in my mind. I didn’t think that she had, but I was in too much shock to argue with them. My suspicion was borne out from the tests they ran hours later. Whatever the mind smith had done to me, it ended when I injected myself with the serum.

  I didn’t know how much my family had been told of what had happened to me. Based solely on the shock and disbelief on their faces when they saw me, though, I guessed they hadn’t been told all the details. Jake’s reaction was, by far, what had worried me the most. If the roles had been reversed, I couldn’t say how I would have reacted. I was effectively a middle-aged man who now inhabited a teenage girl’s body.

  All things considered, I thought he took the news his spouse had changed overnight to the age of his children about as well as I could hope for, which is to say, he didn’t run away screaming as soon as he saw me. True, when he gave me a reassuring hug, I’m not sure if his momentary pause was only in my head or not, but frankly, it might have been more concerning if he hadn’t hesitated.

  I had the next few days off from my regular shifts, which was just as well. I knew the reason for my hiatus was because the administrators were trying to figure out what to do with me, but by that point I didn’t care. I was just grateful for some time off to work through what had happened to me. After my last run-in with the Syndicate, there wasn’t any question anymore. They were planning something outside of their usual scope of short-term chaos, and it looked like those plans involved me somehow.

  “Hey, mom.” Sam approached me the afternoon after I had been injected with the serum, in the first free moment where we found ourselves alone together. “How are you doing?”

  “Honestly?” I dropped the laundry basket I had been carrying onto the couch with a sigh before starting to fold clothes. “Today’s been one of the worst days of my life, and that list includes the day I wound up in a woman’s body.”

  “I guess that was kind of a stupid question.” She winced as she leaned forward and picked up a shirt to help fold.

  “No, it wasn’t stupid. You’re the first one to ask me, if that counts for anything. In fact, outside of this morning, you’re the first person today to even talk to me.”

  “Really?”

  “Look at me, Sam. I look like I could be your twin, not your mom. Doesn’t that freak you out at all?”

  “I think that, if I can handle the fact my dad is now my mom, I can handle her losing a few decades of age.”

  “I’m not sure everyone else is going to agree with you.”

  “No, mom, you’re not giving them enough credit.” She studied me as she picked up another shirt. “People change. I mean, just look at you! In the span of two months, you’ve gone from being a stranger in your own body, completely insecure about who you are, to a woman with enough confidence to accept an award on nationally syndicated news. You’ve had your whole life turned on its head, and you’ve adapted to it amazingly well.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You haven’t?” She raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you wearing makeup?”

  “It makes me look older,” I mumbled, even as my face burned from embarrassment.

  “Are you...” She bit her lower lip as she studied me.

  “What if he leaves me?”

  I wished I could take back the words as soon as they left my lips. Sam was young—far too young—for me to be talking with her about anything like this. And yet, the fear inside was so raw and so powerful that I had to let it out somehow. With no one else to talk to, the words had come out before I could stop them.

  She reached over and pulled me into a hug without saying a word. I let her wrap her arms around me and managed to keep my composure enough that I didn’t start crying, but it was a close thing.

  Dinner hadn’t been as uncomfortable as it could have been, though sitting through half an hour of Nicole’s ribbing was enough to tax my patience to its breaking point.

  “I’m just saying.” She shrugged and pushed her finished plate away. “As long as we found mom’s old student IDs, I think we could be looking at some seriously good discounts at the movie theatre.”

  “Nicole!” Jake growled. “That’s—”

  The glass she had been holding shattered in her hand, scattering droplets of water all over the table. She blinked in confusion and looked down at the flecks of crystal in her hand, even as I pushed myself to my feet. Alan looked as confused as Nicole did, but Sam’s gaze went immediately to me. I couldn’t piece apart the look she gave me, not in that moment. Without meaning to, my hand moved up to rest on the locket hanging from my neck as Jake turned to look at me as well. His eyes followed my hand, and I saw recognition there.

  “Amber!”

  I ignored his shout, whirling around and grabbing my set of keys from the counter before almost sprinting out to the garage.

  I hadn’t meant to shatter the glass. It was just a flicker of annoyance. Nothing like that had ever caused my powers to flare before. Unbidden, the image of Sam watching me in silence kept burning its way through my mind as I drove. She understood. I could have killed...

  I hadn’t meant to do that! Would my powers activate like that again, without my meaning them to, every time I got too emotional? What had that serum done to me?

  I didn’t know where to go, but I knew I couldn’t stay there. Not while I was so out of touch with my powers. I knew first-hand what could happen when primes were a law to themselves. I would remove myself from my family before ever letting that happen.

  “Don’t,” I warned an hour later, my eyes still trained on the dirt pit in front of me. The sound of shoes crunching through the snow drew nearer, despite my warning.

  “You’re going to catch a cold.” Jake heaved himself onto the hood of my car to sit next to me. I kept my arms hugged around my knees as he took his jacket off and draped it over my shoulders.

  “Are the kids...?”

  “They’re all in bed. It’s still a school night.”

  “I can’t go back home.” I tried
without success to keep my face from twisting into a grimace. “The serum’s messed with my abilities. Until I get a grip on these powers, it’s not safe. I could have killed Nicole back there.”

  He sighed, his eyes on the delicate locket hanging from my neck. He turned toward the mounds of dirt and rubble just beyond the chain-link fence in front of us before speaking. “I came here every week for a year after you showed it to me. It was during the start of my second year of arbiter training. Coming here helped me remember why I had become an arbiter in the first place. Do you remember bringing me here that first time?”

  “I couldn’t forget it, even if I wanted to. Beginning of Sophomore year, right?”

  “Yeah.” A smile touched his lips as he looked back at me.

  “I was so scared, somehow, to bring you here. It was stupid. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand, or that you’d feel sorry for me.”

  “I felt kind of blown away that you would share something this important with me, but I would never be insensitive enough to pity you.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “We’d only been dating for three months, and I already knew enough about you to know how much of a mistake that would be. You’ve never needed pity.”

  I sighed, my eyes returning to the pit in front of us. Not for the first time since the body swap, I wondered how different my life might have been if the rubble and debris in front of us were still a house.

  “Do you ever wish we had waited?” I asked. “Maybe spent more time getting to know each other before getting married and having kids?”

  “Why? We knew we were doing the right thing, didn’t we?”

  “It felt like the right thing. I mean, it seemed like we already knew each other when we first met, didn’t it?”