Hair Power

by Piers Anthony

  Hair Power

  Piers Anthony

  Hair Power

  Copyright © 2016 by Piers Anthony

  All stories are copyright of their respective creators as indicated herein, and are reproduced here with permission.

  Cover Art

  Mac Hernandez

  Design

  Niki Browning

  Editor-in-Chief

  Kristi King-Morgan

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2016

  ISBN 13: 978-1534919143

  ISBN 10: 1534919147

  Dreaming Big Publications

  www.dreamingbigpublications.com

  Contents

  1. Hairball

  2. Wig

  3. Date

  4. Arsenal

  5. Gena

  6. Hair Skirt

  7. Roque

  8. Tillo

  9. Hallelujah

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  Chapter 1:

  Hairball

  Quiti was no quitter, but she was looking for a place to quit. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, a really lovely sunny day, but it was wasted on her. She walked past City Hall, which was close to her home; it was a small town. She admired its classic architecture, but this too was largely wasted on her. She paused to study herself in the reflection of a dirty deserted store window; the recession had been bad for local business. She looked like an ill mannequin, with her bald head and pudgy face, and felt worse. Her nausea was not merely from the fading remnant of the last chemo treatment, but from her realistic assessment of her prospects.

  “As with Rome in the late days,” she murmured. “Before she mends, must sicken worse.”

  Except that she would not mend. Her parents were in denial, her doctors were locked into fake smiles, her friends were avoiding the subject, but she knew the truth: Her condition was terminal. Already she felt the dread cancer pushing at her brain, trying to assume complete possession of the remaining space within her skull. She needed constantly stronger doses of pain medication. The chemo was supposed to extend her survival as much as six months, but she knew that was hopelessly optimistic.

  Why wait for the visions fostered by the potent treatments, the hallucinations, the loss of her besieged sense of self as the monster inside her head consumed her identity? Better, far better, to deal with it early, before she became a mere parody of what was once an ordinary college age girl? To end it in her own fashion, by her own decision, cleanly, efficiently. She had the sharp paring knife; one firm slash across her throat would delete her consciousness and allow her to bleed out painlessly before anyone found her. All she needed was a sufficiently private place, and a bit of deadly courage.

  Which was why she was here in the derelict section of town. A deserted warehouse seemed ideal. It might be days before anyone checked it. She had written her farewell note and left it under her pillow where it would be found when they searched her room for clues to her disappearance. The note thanked her folks for their patience and support, said she loved them, and regretted the pain she had caused them. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” it concluded. “Maybe I will see you again in Heaven.” She didn’t believe in Heaven or in any afterlife, but they did, so that might be some scant comfort to them.

  She continued walking, approaching a large silent building. Its wide double doors were locked, but there might be an entrance via the small office section. A boy she knew had mentioned how he and his friends sneaked in to smoke pot in private. So there was a way. All she had to do was find it.

  The office door was latched but not locked. She entered cautiously, just in case there was an employee or a security guard; she didn’t want to have to try to explain her business there. There was no one. Behind the desk, at the rear, was an inner door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. This too was unlocked.

  She entered that barn-like main warehouse. It was hot and gloomy. Perfect!

  Please.

  Quiti paused. Had someone spoken to her? All she saw was a yard-wide clump of fur on the barren floor, or maybe a giant hairball. Had her slightly guilty conscience addressed her, trying to dissuade her from her purpose? “Is someone here?” she asked.

  Please. Help me.

  Quiti focused on the hairball. “Is that you?” she asked.

  Please. I am in pain. I need light.

  It was definitely the hairball, and it was evidently telepathic. Was she having a hallucination already? Well, maybe even that deserved some respect. “Who are you?”

  Call me Hair Brain. Who are you?

  Fair enough; it seemed that her limited imagination had some humor. Hair brain, rather than hare brain. “Hello, Hair Brain. I am Quiteria, Quiti for short. I am a twenty year old nondescript human female.”

  May I explore your mind, Quiti?

  Why the hell not? It wasn’t as if any of this came from anywhere outside her sick head. “Go ahead, if it doesn’t take too long.”

  It is instant. I have done it. I like you, Quiti. You have sterling qualities of character.

  As if her own hallucination was going to dislike her? Maybe it feared she would banish it if it didn’t flatter her. “How can I help you, Hair Brain?”

  I need light to feed on. I am alien to this world. I hid here to avoid awkward discovery and got trapped. Please.

  That was straightforward. “You are a visitor from another planet?”

  I am.

  She wasn’t sure she believed that, but again there was the matter of respect. “You mean no harm to the folk of this world?”

  No harm. I am here to recruit emissaries to facilitate diplomatic communication between our worlds.

  If this stemmed from her own fevered imagination, she had more wit than she thought, being a grade C student and person throughout her young life. Determination and realism were most of what little she had going for her. Maybe she was adapting from some cheap sci-fi effort she had seen in passing and forgotten. “You need light. Will sunlight do?”

  Yes!

  She approached the hairball. From up close she saw that the hair radiated out from a smaller center, maybe like a sea anemone. It probably did not weigh much. “I will pick you up and take you outside, into the sunlight. Will that do?”

  Yes.

  On any other occasion she might have been concerned about touching such a weird hairy thing. But what did it matter? It was a construct of her ill imagination, and in any event she would soon be dead. “I must put my hands on you. Please don’t sting me, or whatever it is you do.”

  No sting, it agreed.

  She squatted, reaching to the base of the thing. She touched it with her fingers, and it did not sting her. She cupped her two hands and heaved it up. It weighed about twenty pounds; she could handle it. Its radiating hair was in her face, but she could see though to the doorway beyond. She walked carefully to that doorway, made her way through the small office, and on outside into the sunlight.

  Light! The thought was phenomenally gratified. She could feel the delight in the creature.

  She set the hairball down on a chest-high loading dock outside the building and stepped back. “There you are, alien envoy. Do you need anything else?”

  Hair Brain fluffed out its hair, becoming significantly larger. It rose off the dock, and settled down again. Its color shifted, becoming scintillating. The direct sunlight was doing it worlds of good. Yes. I need to repay your kindness, Quiti. What can I do for you in return for saving me?

 
; She shook her head. What could a fantasy image do for her, really? “There is no need. I’m just glad to have helped.”

  I insist. I must do you an equivalent return favor.

  Too bad this wasn’t real! She could have asked for a cure for her cancer. Now she just needed to wrap this up so she could get on with her real business here, before she lost her nerve. So she made a facetious request. “How about a really nice head of hair, so I won’t be bald anymore?”

  Excellent choice. Do not move.

  Then the hair ball floated off the dock, came toward her, and landed on her bald head. Astonished, she stood perfectly still. It felt like a heavy helmet. Her skin tingled where it touched, not unpleasantly. Something was happening.

  Then it lifted off and returned to the dock. It will grow soon.

  “Uh, thank you,” she said. “Now if that’s all, I will leave you.”

  Until we meet again. Then the hair ball faded out.

  The hallucination was over, but her head still tingled. Almost as if the incident had been real.

  Quiti faced the office. But something stopped her. Her suicidal depression was gone. She no longer wanted to kill herself. Her reasons remained, but it was clear she was not up to doing it today.

  What could she do? She shrugged and walked back toward home.

  Chapter 2:

  Wig

  Quiti’s home was her parents’ small house in a suburb of the town, neatly kept but nondescript. They were an absolutely ordinary family of three. Her father, Bill, worked in a furniture company office, earning enough but not more than enough to make the mortgage payments and basic expenses. He might have gotten a promotion, but had turned it down. Why? Because he needed to stay where he was, within walking distance of his job, with the insurance he had, to support his ill daughter. Quiti hated that, but could not deny its validity; she needed to remain where she was too, with the hospital close and support available for her condition. That guilt was part of what had caused her to make the decision to kill herself. Her folks needed to be free of the burden of her.

  So what had changed? Because she no longer had any intention of dying. Not today, not tomorrow, not in six months, in fact not ever. She had become excruciatingly positive in the last hour, and knew it would not abate. Because of her encounter with the hairball.

  It stemmed from the bald skin of her head. Something was there that radiated a positive mood, senseless as that might seem. Maybe she had imagined the whole sequence, yet her outlook had suffered a change. She was not going to die.

  How could she know that? Logically, it was nonsensical. Had she joined her parents in delusion? “Denial: it’s not just a river in Africa,” she muttered, repeating a saying she had heard when talking with other cancer patients. They, too, had families and friends who could not accept the reality of their conditions, and it was cruel to try to argue with them. What would be, would be, regardless of what they chose to believe. That applied especially to her parents, who simply could not accept the loss of their child, however ordinary she might be.

  Quiti had always been a grade C student, safely above failing, but also safely below any possible academic ambition. She was in college because of a class-action grant that applied to students like her, intended to provide them some distraction while nature took its inevitable course. Her grades hardly mattered, since she would never have the chance to make effective use of what she learned. The other students were familiar with her situation, and recognized her, either bald or with her cheap wig. They never teased her. Not since the diagnosis. That, actually, was disquieting; it meant they were indulging in a grim deathwatch.

  And of course she had no boyfriend. She would have welcomed one, and probably would have given him anything he wanted, just to maintain the relationship. It wasn’t cancer that was responsible, it was that she was totally plain. Her face was on the negative side of ordinary, with a nose slightly big, mouth slightly irregular, and her body had always been slightly chubby. Boys simply were not turned on, even those whose horizons were limited to thoughtless sex. She was not appealing even as a one night stand.

  She entered the house. Her mother, Betty, was there in a moment. “Quiti! Where were you? I worried.”

  “I took a walk, Mom. Just sorting out my feelings.”

  “You must have good feelings! They are too negative at the hospital; I know you will recover.”

  “Yes I will,” Quiti agreed. Now, oddly, she believed it.

  “Lunch will be ready soon, dear. You must eat well.”

  Suddenly Quiti was ravenously hungry. That was odd, as her appetite had been at best indifferent, thanks in part to the sieges of nausea. But she had no nausea now. “I will eat very well,” she agreed.

  Her mother bustled off to the kitchen, thrilled by Quiti’s promise to have appetite. Betty could have taken an odd job to assist the family’s finances but that prospect had faded with the illness. Now she had to be constantly at home, to take care of Quiti in case she had an emergency. This was not unrealistic; sometimes Quiti suffered severe dizziness, and might fall and hurt herself. She felt guilty for that, too.

  She went to her bedroom. The first thing she did was remove the suicide note from under the pillow; it was no longer applicable. The second thing was to strip naked and gaze at herself in the long mirror.

  She was simply not impressive, quite apart from her baldness. She stood five and a half feet tall, her posture was a slouch, her belly protruded, and the fat on her buttocks was flabby rather than sexy. Her breasts were simply additional lumps of slightly sagging fat rather than beacons of feminine appeal. She couldn’t blame the boys; if she were male, she would not be interested in a body like this either.

  She straightened up and inhaled. All that happened was that the lumps of fat became more prominent, while her belly barely tightened.

  So why the hell was she so positive? This was a hundred and eighty degrees contrary to reality.

  She sighed and put on a dress. Then she donned her wig. It was a motley brown affair, second hand from a girl who no longer lived. It did improve her appearance somewhat, if only because it hid her baldness and framed her face so that her pimples no longer showed.

  She went down to lunch. Betty had made egg salad sandwiches. They were delicious. Quiti gulped them down so fast that her mother was astonished. “Great, mom! I’m still hungry.”

  Her mother plainly did not know what to make of this change. “I have leftovers, but—”

  “I’ll take them!”

  She did, and soon her belly was full. Sometimes the act of eating had stirred up her digestive system, so that she had had to chew and swallow slowly lest she vomit the meal back out. But she was full and fine now.

  Could an imaginary hairball alien have accomplished this? It did not seem likely. But then, what did account for it?

  After lunch Quiti returned to her room, brushed her teeth, and did an impromptu dance as if she were happy. How could she be happy? Was she absolutely crazy? Was her hallucination the first sign of her burgeoning insanity, as the tumors shoved at her brain?

  Somehow it did not seem so. She had no headache, no dizziness, no discomfort whatsoever. She did not need a pain pill. She felt better than she had in months.

  Well, she could check to see whether she was really in good shape. She lay on her bed and did leg lifts, which normally wore her out after a few repetitions. They were fine. She did sit ups, and they were fine. She got on the floor and did push-ups, and they too were fine. Finally she went to the clothing bar in her closet and did a pull-up. Normally that would poop her out entirely; she simply did not have the muscle.

  She did three pull-ups and paused, breathing hard. Was this possible? Her record, set before the illness, was five. So she did three more.

  This was weird. She did not have the muscle. Was she just imagining it? That seemed more likely. First the hairball, then the fitness. Imagination was cheap.

  She lay on the bed and pondered. She needed to get a gra
sp on reality, and for that she needed help.

  Well, she would get it. Decisions were coming more readily now. In fact her mind felt uncommonly clear.

  She clapped the wig back on her head. “I’m going out for another walk,” she called to her mother as she left the house.

  The moment she was out in the sunlight, her scalp itched. She pulled off the wig so that the rays struck her skin. Then her head felt wonderful.

  “The hair,” she murmured. “Hair Brain gave me hair. It must need the sun, just as he does.” The hairball had become male in her mind, for convenience. “So forget the wig; soak my head in sun.”

  There was a small community playground two blocks distant from the house. She walked there. Three teen boys were playing bat and fetch with a softball. She knew them; in the old days she had joined them in such exercises, though she had never been very good at them.

  They spied her. “Hi, Quiti!” one called. Not Baldy, Girly, or any other derisive name, and no razzing; as with the others, they knew. It was a neighborhood conspiracy. Their special politeness covered their pity. “Wanna take a bat?”

  Actually, yes, now that she thought of it. That should quickly show her physical reality. “Sure, Speedo.”

  She took her place at bat. Speedo was pitcher, with the second boy playing catcher and the third in the field, not far out. He sent an underhand pitch, not at all as hard as he could; she was after all a sick girl.

  She swung, connected, and hit the ball out over the fielder’s head.

  All three boys stood still, staring at her. “You on steroids, girl?” Speedo asked.

  “I don’t think so. But there’s no telling what meds they put me on. I just felt strong, and thought it was imaginary. That hit must have been a fluke; you know I’m not that good.”

  Of course they knew, and did not say. “Wanna try it again?”

  “Yes, if it’s okay with you. I don’t want to mess up your game.”