Furies- Thus Spoke

by O'Brian Gunn

  Small blue-gray eyes crack open along with a small mouth in a yawn.

  “Aw, she’s bored already.” Glen waggles his finger in his daughter’s grip.

  “There’s so much for her to see, so much for us to do.”

  Lisa’s eyes roll around curiously, little fingers absently squeezing her father’s. She looks up at her mother and opens her mouth.

  “Hey, baby, I’m your mother.”

  Little eyes roll to Glen.

  “And I’m your da-da.”

  Little Lisa looks from her da-da to her mother and back to her da-da.

  Jenny laughs. “I think she understands us.”

  Little Lisa blinks with her little lips puckered in curiosity.

  “We’ve got a little scholar on our hands.” Glen makes a face at his baby girl.

  Little Lisa slowly lets go of his finger.

  Five years pass

  “Lisa?”

  “I’m upstairs, daddy.”

  Glen clops up the stairs to his office as he puts on his cufflinks. He looks down and sees his daughter sitting inside a ring of books.

  “What are you reading, sweet pea?”

  “One of your old math textbooks.” She doesn’t look up. Instead, she scratches through a set of numbers with a pen and scribbles a set of her own. “Several of these solutions are wrong. Did you know that, daddy?”

  “What does a five-year-old know about advanced calculus?” He smiles and bends down. He examines what she’s written...and the smile slowly drips from his face. “Where did you learn this formula, sweetie?”

  A little shrug. “I just know.” She scratches out a three and replaces it with a five.

  Glen looks at the pile of books around her. Literature. Politics. Anatomy. Accounting. Appliance manuals. All of them slashed with blue ink. He smooths a hand over his daughter’s hair. It’s the same color as her mother’s. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, I still have to fix your lunch and pack your backpack before I drop you off at the academy.” He stands.

  She looks up at him, little lips parted. “I did all that after I fixed breakfast for mommy and I. We had chocolate chip pancakes, Eggs Benedict, and french toast with honey.” She glances aside, considers. “I should have said mommy and me, not mommy and I.”

  Glen pauses his flitting fingers as they tie his tie. “You don’t need anyone to take care of you, do you?” He smiles.

  Today

  “Lisa, why don’t you wait until your dad comes home and let him do that.”

  “I can do it, mom.” Lisa picks up one screwdriver, discards it, and trades it for another. She picks up the smaller pole and attaches it to the two larger poles. The pages of the discarded instruction book flap in the breeze.

  Jenny watches from the porch as her daughter assembles her new swing set. Disbelief mixes with concern on her face. “Lisa, you really should just—”

  Lisa turns around with a wrench clamped in her mouth. “Whaish et, mum?” Metal mangles her words.

  “Nothing. Let me help you.” She steps out into the yard.

  Lisa spits the wrench out into her palm, points. “Okay. Can you hand me those pliers there, please?”

  Jenny picks up a tool.

  “No, not those. The tool—Next to it—No, other si—Yes, those.” Her mother hands her the pliers. “Thanks, mom.”

  Jenny sits and watches her daughter.

  That night, Jenny grabs her designer purse and matching jacket and walks for the door. “Glen, we’re going to miss the previews if you don’t hurry.”

  “I’d rather miss the previews than miss the movie. Watching previews is like looking at a meal you won’t be able to fully enjoy for several months.” Glen shrugs into his blazer as he hurries down the stairs.

  “If I wanted logic, I’d stay home and watch the science channel.” She kisses him on the lips.

  “Where’s Lisa?”

  “Waiting in the car.”

  “Did she finish her history report?”

  “In the car on the way home from school.” Her hand hovers near the key hook by the door. “Where are my keys?”

  “Did you check it?”

  She frowns at him. “The keys?”

  “Lisa’s report. Did you check it?”

  “Of course I did. Now, have you seen my keys?”

  “No.” He grabs his keys from the peg. “Probably stuck inside that chasm of a purse of yours. We’ll look for them later.”

  They lock up the house and step into the garage...

  ...and find little Lisa behind the wheel of the silver Lexus. She rolls the window down, waves, and honks the horn. “Come on, pokies. We won’t have time to get overpriced snacks and drinks if you don’t hurry.” The engine’s purr rumbles up to a growl as she presses her little foot to the gas and giggles.

  “Lisa Persia Weisman, get out of that car right now.” Her mother jabs a finger down at the ground.

  Lisa looks confused. “What’s wrong, mom? I can drive us there, it’s not that far.”

  “Lisa, listen to your mother and get out of the car. And don’t touch any of the buttons.”

  Lisa looks at them while she turns on the headlights and windshield wipers and activates the hazard lights. She throws the car in reverse and peels back into the driveway before shifting back into park. Jenny and Glen can make out the tip of her head before they start running for the vehicle.

  Her father wrenches the door open. “Get out of the car right now, Lisa! I mean it! This isn’t one of your toys!”

  “I don’t play with toys, dad! I’m seven!” She takes off her seatbelt and hops out. Glen reaches in the car and removes the key from the ignition. “It isn’t like I took the car out around the block by myself. You never let me do anything.”

  “That’s because you’re a child and can’t do whatever you want.” Her mother bends down and runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. “You’re phenomenally smart and extremely intuitive, but you’re still a child. Your dad and I have to take care of you, watch over you.”

  She plays with her mother’s hair. “But I don’t need you to take care of me. I wake myself up, clothe myself, feed myself, do my own homework, and everything else. I don’t need you.”

  “Honey, you do need us.” Her father kneels down. “We’re your parents.”

  “I know that, dad. I need the two of you, I just don’t need parents.” Her mouth twists down. “I don’t understand why you’re upset at me for taking care of myself.”

  Jenny looks at her daughter, at a younger version of herself, and begins to cry. She sniffs and wipes at her eyes. “Lisa, baby, you don’t have to take care of yourself, not yet. Let us do that for you.”

  “But who takes care of the two of you?” Blink.

  Glen looks at his wife, takes her hand. “We take care of each other. Sometimes I’ll cook and sometimes your mother will wash the dishes. You’re our responsibility.”

  Lisa looks at her parents in wondrous confusion. “But...that’s not taking care of each other, that’s just helping each other. I don’t understand.”

  Her father opens his mouth. Closes it.

  “Why are you crying, mom? Is this conversation making you upset?”

  “No, sweetheart it’s just—” She shakes her head and looks down.

  “We just don’t want you to grow up so fast, that’s all. Your mom and I are just a little shaken. We love you, you’re our little star.”

  Little Lisa scrunches up her face. “Star? I’m not a mass of gas. I don’t generate energy by thermonuclear reactions.”

  Her father’s eyes glisten.

  Little Lisa wraps her arms around her parents and consoles them. Little Lisa takes care of them.

  EPISODE EIGHT: God’s Talent

  Preston Caulley thumbs his nose and sniffs as he waits.

  Sunshine cascades through the high window and paints the warden’s office in golden tones and warm hues. He stretches his hand out to catch a ray, curling and uncurling his fin
gers as if the light is tangible.

  The door opens.

  He snatches his hand back.

  Detectives Torv and West walk in. Perry removes his suit jacket and loosens his tie. He grabs a chair from the wall, drags it closer to Preston, and plops down. “How ya doin’ in here, Preston?”

  Jill leans against the wall, arms crossed.

  “I’m in prison. How do you think I’m doing?”

  Lifted eyebrow. “Just being polite is all. But hey, at least it’s nice and warm in your cell. It’s pretty frigid outside.”

  “Frigid?”

  “It’s a word.” He takes a notepad from his pocket. “Use your copious amounts of leisure time to take a little trek to the library. I have a few book recommendations if you’d like.”

  Preston stares at the man’s little smile before looking over at Torv. “She the bad cop?”

  Perry smirks. “Detective Torv is here to serve as a witness to the interrogation. Procedure and all that.”

  “I appreciate being seen as the bad cop.” Jill tugs her gloves off.

  Perry gives her a look.

  “What? I don’t look threatening?”

  Perry tries to hide his expression as he takes a pen from his shirt pocket.

  “I’ve told you everything I know about the Mind Machine people.” Caulley tugs at the links of chain binding his cuffs together.

  The detective leans forward. “Funny thing about verbal information; you tend to glean new details the more you recite it, or, in my case, hear it. Unless you’ve been lying all this time and simply memorized the whole thing.” He rolls his lips over his teeth and gives the other man a poignant stare. “You’re not lying to me about any of this, are you, Caulley?”

  He stretches his hand out in the sun again. “No. Like I said earlier, one day last month, a woman approached me, said she had heard about me and my, uh, my reputation.”

  “As a rapist for hire.” Perry scribbles.

  Preston tears his eyes from his sun-soaked hand. “I don’t just rape people, detective.”

  “Well, congratu-friggin’-lations, pissant. What’d the woman look like?”

  Sigh. He draws his hand back. “Early thirties, long brown hair. She had a sort of hometown girl face, like she should be modeling for cosmetic companies or something.” Eyes unfocus in memory. “Brown eyes. She was...in good shape, I guess. I mean, she was wearing a sharp little business suit.”

  “She give you a name?”

  “No.”

  “So what did Miss Mystique say to you?” His pen is poised.

  “She told me that she represented a group called Libera Mentis Machina, that they wanted the Johnsons to fade away before they caused any more trouble. You probably heard about the side effects of their happy trips.”

  “Making loons out of people, yeah, I’ve read about it.”

  “Well, one of the Johnsons’ former patients was waiting in the car the woman was in. She brought him out and this guy was, I mean, he was fuck-nuts crazy.” His hands weave the story. “He just kept smiling with glazed-over eyes and babbling about being all warm and fuzzy. I mean, he actually said warm and fuzzy. But that was before he peed himself...and started laughing about it.”

  Perry winces.

  “Anyway, the woman told me who he was and asked me if I wanted to save a lot of lives.”

  “And of course you said yes because you’re just that kinda guy.”

  “Exactly, I—” He stops, catches the sarcasm and continues. “Anyway, I really don’t care about helping people. The only saving I care about is my savings account.” He scratches at his stubble. “Plus, I wanted to see what it was like to kill someone.”

  “But you didn’t really kill the Johnsons.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t kill someone. I mean, that’s why I’m in here, right? Because I killed four people.”

  “Don’t forget all the men you raped. Sometimes leaving someone alive in pain is worse than killing them.”

  “I’ll have to write that on my cell wall.”

  “So, Miss Mystique told you that you wouldn’t be killing the real Johnsons. Did she tell you what would happen to them, where they would be taken?”

  “She said she wanted to take them home.”

  “And where is that?”

  Shrug.

  “You didn’t ask any questions, didn’t wonder if this brown-eyed woman was really who she said she was?”

  “She was dangling seven-thousand dollars in my face.”

  “You killed an entire family for seven-thousand dollars?” Head shake. “You’re a tenderfoot.”

  “I’m a sick man.”

  “No, you’re not, you just want to be. You’re an average white guy with flights of fantasy. I could sit here and tell you a few things about yourself you probably didn’t even know, but I’m not. You probably want someone to tell you that you are what you aren’t.”

  “You should have been a profiler.”

  “And you shoulda been a thirty-something discontent sleeping in his parents’ basement.” Perry doesn’t look up from scribbling.

  “Whatever. How’s the ‘hero’?”

  Now Perry looks up, confused.

  “The platinum guy. What’d he call himself? Savior? Admiral Asshole?”

  “Sovereign. I don’t know how he is, and I honestly don’t care. Man’s about as delusional as you are.”

  “And yet he’s still flying free.” He leans back, taking a lingering look at Jill’s hair caught up in a bun held in place by two hairsticks. “Rather take my chances in here being someone’s muscle prag than put up with him. The Lord can’t help everyone, no matter how hard he squeezes the world in his heavenly hands.”

  The detective flips through his small notebook. “The woman who confessed to the murders—” His eyes rove and roll. “Norma Gargis. What’s her part in all of this?”

  The inmate opens empty hands. “They didn’t let me in on the cast of this production before opening night. Maybe she actually wanted to kill the Johnsons and hated them enough to take credit for my work.”

  Perry leans forward with his elbows on his thighs. “You have any idea where this organization is headquartered?”

  “No.”

  “Any idea what their endgame is?”

  “No.”

  “They mention anything else, any future machinations?”

  “No.”

  Perry studies his face. His wrists go limp. “Spit it out.”

  Caulley slashes his eyes to the other man. “I don’t have any gum.”

  “But you are chewing on some information. Tell me now before I call the COs in here.”

  Inhale. Exhale. Frustration. “While I was in the Johnson’s house, I noticed this thing, a device.”

  “What kind o’ device?”

  “I think it was some kind of tracker. I found it taped under the toilet tank lid.”

  “What were you doing looking in the toilet tank?”

  “Because that’s the last place anyone checks when they’re looking for something valuable.”

  “Why didn’t you take it?”

  “Didn’t see the value in it.”

  He scribbles. “So how did you know it was a tracking device?”

  “It had a map on the screen with a little glowing dot. That doesn’t scream tracking device to you?”

  “We didn’t find any device of any kind when we investigated the scene.”

  He slouches. “Like I said, last place anyone checks.”

  “Alright. Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “No...But there is something I want to ask.” He leans forward on his thighs, mirroring the other man. “How good are your reflexes?”

  The flash of the bulbs is almost bright enough to rival Sovereign’s flames as he stands at the pulpit. The packed pews of Dominion City Apostolic Faith Church seat the congregation as well as reporters and photojournalists. Sovereign has dimmed the intensity of his platinum flames to make it easie
r on the eyes of those gathered, and to make it easier to photograph him.

  He speaks.

  “The Devil walks the earth. We see the prints of his cloven hooves all over this city; the riots, the murders, the hate, and the debauchery that overflows our streets like sewage. Satan is blinding us from the truth. He wants us at our neighbor’s throat, at our brother’s throat, at our own throats so that we’re focusing on the wrong thing. None of this is about who’s human and who isn’t, it’s about who is righteous and who lives a life of sin. We need to realize that all of us, all of us, are living in sin. But God is here to give us salvation. And I’m here to help Him.

  “For those of you who don’t know, my name is Adam Kensie, and I’m also the Sovereign of God. At first, I didn’t want to make my presence known to the public, but now I realize that someone who represents the Holy Light cannot work in the shadows. I do this not for the fame or the publicity, but because it is divine will. I was chosen by God to gather His children, His army, and guide them back to the flock. Alpha-Omegas are instruments of the Most High and nothing else. They are not experiments, they are not celebrities, they are not evil or unnatural, they are simply misguided children.

  “Science has led us to believe that our holy brothers and sisters are abominations, mistakes or jumps in this absurd theory they call evolution. The media wants us to believe they should be regarded as gods. Brothers and sisters, Alpha-Omegas are blessed, pure and simple. They are blessed with God’s talent.” He beams brightly.

  “Maggie, could you come up here, please?”

  Maggie walks down the aisle amidst pulses of light and flickers of sound. She steps up to the pulpit and takes Sovereign’s hand. “This is my wife, my angel, Maggie.” He gently squeezes her hand. “I don’t know who I would be if she hadn’t come into my life. I may be the Sovereign of God, but this woman standing next to me is an angel made flesh.” He kisses her softly and cameras snap like an ocean of sparks.

  “Sovereign.”

  A magnified voice from the back of the church.

  The lovers break from their kiss. Sovereign looks out at the crowd and sees a waving hand attached to the body of a man in a dress shirt and golden vest that almost matches his hair.