by Drew Briney
“How would you like to really grow in your powers?”
So that was it.
It had all been a set up. It made sense now. Girls that looked that innocent knew better than to walk this area alone. Women who frequented these parts of town looked much rougher for the wear than that girl. And the muscle-bound boys were chosen to exaggerate the mismatch. This had all been an effort to poach new Uzzit flesh – which meant the rumors were true. There really were drug dealing opportunists out there peddling their wares to this new generation of special kids.
“You have Slice?” Tzun tentatively queried.
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Answer my question first,” the drug dealer ordered. “How would you like to double your powers?”
“Who wouldn’t?” His half Asian eyes blankly stared back at the older man.
“It comes with a price you know?” His worn face looked more hardened now as he looked down at this new, potential client.
“Yeah, I know,” Tzun responded emotionless. Bricks! he swore to himself, rubbing his eye. It really hurt. “So what are the terms – and who’s gonna teach me?”
“Today’s price is whatever is in your pockets. Tomorrow’s price is negotiable – and I’m your teacher.” Then, with overt pretentiousness, the man pushed one finger forward and drew it downwards as if writing on the wall. As he did so, a bend and then a tear appeared at the top edge of the dumpster and continued until his finger stopped moving. The sound was deafening and gave Tzun another reason to hold onto his head. It seemed his eye injury was quickly becoming a headache.
“That must make you Max,” Tzun responded, still holding his hands over his ears even though it was too late for them to do any good. He said nothing to indicate he was impressed but his good eye emphatically told that story. Max was legendary on the streets but no one ever got to meet him … When Tzun’s instincts told him something wasn’t as it seemed, they weren’t kidding …
“Alright kid, what’s in your pockets?”
The question left Tzun a little frustrated. On the one hand, this would be worth every bill he had lifted earlier that morning. On the other hand, he believed it unwise to play his cards openly. Convincingly feigning stiffness in his right arm, he dug his hand deep into his right pocket and deftly pulled three bills out of the hidden pocket, reclosed it, and produced them for inspection – all without causing the slightest suspicion that he was holding something back. To their common surprise, all three bills were large ones.
Crap! Tzun silently groaned with disappointment. I should have pulled bills from the other end of the fold … “I just got a lucky lift,” he explained. “I don’t usually have that much,” he added as he opened his pockets to show that they were empty. The secret fold remained hidden.
“No problem kid,” Max assured him, eyeing the cash with feigned indifference. “I won’t expect that much every day. So you know the rules right? After three weeks, whatever Slice does to you becomes permanent. You miss a day, you have to start over and you might lose some of what you had before. And no cops right? Buying Slice is illegal; using it is illegal; making it is illegal. You get caught, you’re going to the slammer for longer than I’ll be around and the instant you get caught, old Max here will have zero memory of who you are or what you may have done. This is dangerous business kid. Got it? You still in?” Like most guys in the business, it never really seemed like Max was asking a question. It seemed more like he was saying: this is a done deal but if I have to do more fast talking to make this happen, I’ll keep my mouth moving until you give in from exhaustion. Inevitably, the result would be the same.
Tzun feigned indecision for a moment, giving himself time to think over the consequences of what he was doing here. There really was no question though – he just needed to double check his resolve. What boy – especially a scrawny teenager worn from regular beatings – wouldn’t take a three week ride to becoming a near superhero? Who doesn’t want to be thrown away from their current life and into something bigger, better, happier? Who doesn’t want more control over what is going on around them? For a thin teenage boy struggling to find his next meal, there really was no viable alternative – at least, Tzun didn’t see any.
“Yeah, I’m in,” he answered with cold determination.
“Aaaallright!” Max chuckled in response, stashing Tzun’s prize cash into one pocket while reaching into another inside jacket pocket – all the while, a big smile spreading over his teeth. “Here’s your package. This is enough for two days but I expect you to be here again tomorrow. You keep the extra dose just in case something bad happens some day and one of us is late to our meeting. Every day, we meet right here at this same time. Got it?”
“Got it.” Tzun reached for the metallic brown liquid as he carefully noted the time on Max’s watch – Tzun, of course, wasn’t wearing one.
The young boy shuffled nervously as he slowly placed the vial in his right pocket and considered what he was doing. He felt better when Max tipped his hat, nodded, and walked away in the same direction as the other thugs had gone. It passingly occurred to Tzun that Max may have ordered the beating he had just received – but he was too naïve to seriously consider such a thing so the thought promptly dissipated into oblivion. Besides, there were more important things to consider: if Tzun could hone his pickpocketing skills, he would quickly rise to the top of the food chain in three short weeks. If not … well, he wasn’t going to think about that. He was already scrounging about the lowest levels of society – how much worse could it get?
He swirled the bottle and watched the liquid shimmer and change shapes as two separate hues emerged among the cloudy swirls. When he held the bottle still, the liquid quickly settled into a more uniform consistency. As he pondered over the opportunities Slice might present to him, Tzun began walking down the alley with an uncharacteristic spring to his step and then checked it; beggars couldn’t appear too happy – that would blow his cover. Modifying his gait, he considered various rumors he had heard about Slice: it only worked on Uzzit. If it didn’t kill normal people, they wished it had. But for people like Tzun, it unleashed access to those inner workings of the brain that scientists had been attempting to tap for decades.
If research in this field hadn’t been heavily regulated and ultimately banned by nearly every industrialized country, Uzzit advancements would have been the global norm. American Uzzits were subjected of federal government regulations and inefficient bureaucracy, which led many of them to congregate in the Puget Sound area where government oversight and corruption allowed a quiet underground to steadily grow. Numbers of Uzzit were unknown. Uzzit births were unknown; undetectable without expensive testing, parents of Uzzit children were often unaware of their children’s abilities for several years – but very few kept it secret as long as Tzun. His weak powers offered an element of surprise that he frequently needed to escape trouble.
In the states, Uzzit enhancement drugs were controversial and experimental. On the black market, experimental versions of Slice could be purchased but resources were low and word had it that Max personally delivered every shipment of Slice, beating down every sign of potential competition. He never accepted solicitations and he always handpicked his clients. That made for stiff competition, high prices, and enduring loyalty that couldn’t be bought in any other way. By some stroke of luck, Tzun was rising through that system. Life would never be the same.
His fingers instinctively wrapped around the cool vial, smothering it with tenacious attention. Passingly, Tzun considered that he didn’t know how to divide the vial into two equal proportions – or perhaps that didn’t matter. He could start out with a smaller portion this evening – surely that wouldn’t matter for the first day? Not thinking about it, Tzun wiped some sweat off his brow and bumped his swollen eye. As he winced, he considered that he could use his misfortune to his advantage.
Feigning a slight limp that increased as he moved along,
he found a small opening on the boardwalk where many people were passing by, gingerly sat down, and began to beg for money. Deliberately rubbing his temples to temper the pain, he tilted his head to accentuate the injury to passersby. Fickle fortune returned as his companion for a few hours when his success became difficult to hide – his pockets were subtly bulging with money. Each time he received cash, he slipped larger bills into his hidden pocket and left smaller bills in the regular pocket. He happily considered that he probably had enough money for a few day’s worth of Slice by the time he went home for supper.
“Hey,” a soft voice called Tzun to look up. His bad eye nearly swollen shut, Tzun awkwardly turned his head to look upon the most beautiful face he had ever seen. In her twenties, dressed like she didn’t belong in the area, and conspicuously attached to some burly fellow Tzun ignored, the young woman looked perfect in every way – except for the severely deformed and mangled hand that she used to pass on a substantial wad of bills to the young beggar. “Better times are coming,” she encouraged with a sultry voice that left Tzun melting … and then flushing in shame as she strolled away to purchase local wares.
Daily – if not more frequently – Tzun recycled rationales to justify his lifestyle. Uneducated, somewhat fatherless, and stuck in a crime infested town, he only did what familial obligations required: he begged and stole so his family could eat. But he refused to think of himself as a thief; at least, he periodically pontificated, it isn’t wrong to be a thief as long as you have good reasons to steal. The fact that countless others used this same reasoning fortified his feelings of justification in what he did but something deeply embedded in his subconscious nagged at him to reconsider his life’s path so he regularly chanted this mantra to keep himself steady on the course he was following. And while he often lifted enough money to take care of his family, it never seemed quite enough and occasionally, extra money was needed to bail someone out of jail. Retracing his thoughts, Tzun watched his most recent benefactor as she meandered further away from him. People with enough money can buy stuff to regrow hands like that, he considered. But she gave money to Tzun instead. Of course he felt ashamed – who wouldn’t? Another stranger discretely gave Tzun a small offering as he passed by while Tzun drooped his head further, nearly pinning it between his knees.
As the hours passed and street life slowed down for the dinner hour, Tzun slowly stood up and slithered down the boardwalk, unnoticed by anyone at all. If he had any real talent, this was it: he could disappear – masterfully well. His right hand, now familiar with the vial it had been stroking throughout the day, held firm to its package. He needed to go somewhere private to divide his daily dose and see how it affected him. As he had thought about this while begging, he determined that he would first go home, make his daily presentation of financial offerings to his family, visit the bathroom where he could hide his stash of money, divide the vial of Slice with a toothpaste cap, drink his daily dose, and go for a walk to the park where he could sit underneath some bushes and … experiment. He waited to take his first dose so that he would have a strong buffer time between his meetings with Max. One missed day could lead to disastrous consequences – and that was a risk he wouldn’t take.
Soon, Tzun was climbing the stairs to the second floor where his family lived. Part of him didn’t want to go home today – his swollen (probably black) eye would be embarrassing and he would have to tell the same story half a dozen times to half a dozen family members before the night was over. The other part of him was thrilled and excited – how would Slice enhance his powers? Rumor had it that Slice was somewhat unpredictable: its effect on some people was minimal while its effect on others was nigh unto disastrous. But for most people, Slice just magnified the abilities of whoever was using it. Of course, Tzun knew he was taking a gamble by hoping that Slice would treat him well but he suppressed those considerations.
Hand held up to the doorknob, he briefly considered not opening the door to his apartment. What if he just downed half the vial right now, walked to the park, and learned what was going to happen without any further waiting? Maybe it would heal his eye – rumor said that Slice made some people heal ridiculously fast – but then, Tzun heard that from Patty and everyone knew she couldn’t reliably regurgitate the truth. Or maybe Slice would enhance his psionic talents and allow him to control his Uncle Kan – the scariest relative in his family. To date, Tzun hadn’t shared his Uzzit talents with anyone – not even with Koemi – so no one would suspect his taking control over Kan’s mind for a while …
Without thinking, Tzun turned the knob, hung his head low, and brooded his way into the living room. With his bruised eye swollen shut, feigning depression would be easy and Kan probably wouldn’t badger him for his share of the money as intensely as usual. Marie, his mother was the first to notice, then Aki, his aunt, then Ba Tu, his mentally handicapped father, and then a slew of cousins all together. Within ten minutes, the entire household was in its traditional uproar and given the situation, it was easy for Tzun to excuse himself into the bathroom for a few minutes while the women of the family returned to their traditional meal preparations.
Hand shaking, breath constricted, and pulse quickening, Tzun shut the door, locked it, unscrewed the toothpaste cap, pulled out the vial, popped off the cork top, and carefully measured slightly less than one half of the metallic liquid one portion at a time. Although gritty, Slice tasted somewhat like old car keys. And beyond that distinct metal taste, it sent subtle shocks of electricity down his tongue and throat, sort of like chewing tinfoil except that the tingling sensation traveled with the liquid all of the way down into the stomach. Almost immediately, Tzun felt energized and found himself hungrily sipping every last spec of Spice out of the toothpaste cap, carefully rinsing the cap with a couple drops of water, and sucking hard to make sure there was no Spice left in the cap. Leaving residue in the cap could be quite dangerous to other family members but Tzun nearly forgot to think about that. If anything, he felt strongly tempted just to drink the second portion of Slice and then come up with some lame excuse as to how he had spilt it on the ground so that he could get an extra serving – it was exhilarating, fulfilling, and demanding all at once – and Tzun soon felt growing impulses to do things he had never done before.
The next hour with his family was painfully unfulfilling – like how a child feels when promised ice cream on a road trip: the excitement only lasts so long before the wait becomes agonizing. In between explaining what had happened in the alleyway (conveniently omitting anything involving Max) and presenting a disappointingly paltry financial offering for the day, Tzun found himself largely distracted by things that were happening outside.
Juan, known for blaring his mariachi music louder than anyone else in the neighborhood cared to hear began a long volley of expletives when his radio sparked and popped until it failed to work entirely. Experimenting further, Tzun brushed Juan’s mind with strong suggestions to include a string of defamatory rantings about his wife while banging on the radio – bringing no small fury from her tongue as she overheard what he had to say. A homeless dog known for random acts of aggression whimpered loudly and ran away down the alley. A short while later, a neighborhood bully sincerely and profusely professed his love to a stairwell while onlookers softly chuckled with eyebrows cocked and heads shaking. Other random incidents followed every few minutes.
Psionics were Tzun’s passion but before today, he had only been able to master some few useful tricks. Even then, after a few bursts of effort, he usually felt drained and unable to do much anything else. Today was different. Tzun was embarking upon a new world. New ideas came readily and Slice opened his mind to make new efforts intuitive – instinctual. After an hour of experimenting and messing around with people’s heads as they walked along the road below, Tzun felt like he was just warming up. The moment dinner was over, he nearly bolted out the door and went for that long awaited walk to the park.
“Kan, you really should teach him how to fi
ght. Didn’t you see his eye?” Marie coaxed, offering a prodigious puppy dog face to emphasize her point.
“Not a chance. You heard how he lost his temper and beat those boys last year.”
“Oh come on, you know Koemi is prone to exaggeration. Look at Tzun’s eye when he comes back. I really doubt her story carries much weight …”
“The boy talks to himself late at night, comes and goes at random times, and has no job. He must first learn discipline, to control his passions …”
“Kan,” Marie interrupted in turn. You’re such a hypocrite. “You began teaching your children before they were old enough to know these things. I know Tzun’s Australian mother unforgivably gave him a Chinese name but he is still your family. You cannot expect him to survive these streets much longer at his size without some training. How much longer until …”
“No.”
“Ba Tu would teach him but since his injury …”
“No.”
“Kan …”
“No,” Tzun’s uncle repeated with exasperation. “He is already too dangerous. Koemi said that two of those boys last year went to the hospital in critical condition.”
“Not true…” she sing-songed in response, trying to retain her composure – and her patience.
“Why he let someone get the better of him again today, I don’t know but I am certain of this …” he paused for dramatic effect, shaking his finger with frustration. “Tzun is a danger to those around him. He is constantly in fights, he is unstable ...”
“He’s a cheerful puppy dog who couldn’t harm a spring chick,” Marie interjected with unbelieving desperation, “he …”
