by Farley Dunn
Like a bee, Garik thought, certain he had nailed her hybridization.
A frenzied cheer erupted from around the ring, and Jantzen vanished, his clothes dropping to his chair, and a dark purple smudge flashed through the air between their table and the two combatants in the ring. Garik blinked to see Jantzen’s head and shoulders behind Justin Kurtew, with his arms underneath Justin’s and holding them up over his head. Justin’s hands kept whipping back and forth but were unable to touch anything with his knives, and across from him, Alyna held her forehead, her claws sheathed, and blood seeping from between her fingers.
“He’ll want these.” Amy sighed and gathered up Jantzen’s clothes. “Every time, this is what happens.”
“He, um, that was real?” Garik looked from the empty seat and back to the ring, where he could just see Jantzen’s dark hair as he helped Justin back into his leather duster. He remembered the video promotion showcasing Jantzen on the mall, the event Arik had forced him to miss. Camera angles and magic fakery, he had thought then. Now, he was thinking, maybe the wrist thing had actually happened.
Jantzen and Amy reappeared, and Jantzen was pulling his shirt over his head. He looked exhausted, but he grinned at Garik. “Not quite the show I intended to offer you, but as you can see, maybe we’ve done worse than combine a person with a cockroach.”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Not that old story again.”
“Are all these people, um, like that? You know, that different?” Bloodthirsty, he almost said. The physical differences were a given. They just were. “And why were they fighting?” Garik watched Jantzen carefully as he walked around the table and seated himself, just making sure he was as solid as a real person should be.
“That’s the reason for the events on the mall. And probably the reason the good doctor was called away to see Justin.” Jantzen looked down to line up a crease on one leg.
“It gives everyone a chance to burn off energy. It’s the only time many of them can go outside,” Amy added.
“Outside.” Garik pictured the tickets no one could seem to get, the twelve-foot wall that lifted from the sidewalks to keep the city folk out, and the light show that simulated the building crumbling into silicon glitter over and ever. Wouldn’t Marisa love to know how close to the truth she had been?
Had been. Was. Marisa wasn’t gone. He was. She was still just as right as ever.
“Can I go to one?” They had to let him. They must.
“Go to one what?” Jantzen patted his face with a napkin. He was perspiring, and he looked like his vanishing trick had been painful.
“An event. I’ve always wanted to. Can you get me in?” He had to do this, and before he Houdinied. He might never have another chance.
Jantzen looked hesitant, but Amy said, “Friday night, Jantzen. The Howling Pterodactyls are performing. What do you say?”
“I should say no, but after that exhibition, I don’t think much will surprise you. Okay, but you’re to stay with me the entire time. No impulsive stuff.” He looked hard at Garik’s bandage before jumping his eyes back to his face.
“On my honor. I promise.” He held up his hand, almost dropped it because of the bandage, then kept it up. “No more of this.”
The mall. He would be attending a Tower event, and with Jantzen Hefferly. The Dactyls weren’t so wonderful, but to look up and see the silicon glitter tumbling from the sky?
How lucky was that?
― 8 ―
GARIK SQUEEZED one eye open and glared at the fake window taking up much of one wall in his room.
Fake window. Fake scene outside. Fake morning sun. At least the blinds were real, even if they only muted the blaring trumpet of the sun’s fake rays.
The clapper of the bell at St. Anne’s kept going off in his head, and he twisted his face into the pillow, forcing the morning back through the window so he could wrap himself in the comfort of the dark and return to blissful sleep.
He twisted, the sheet binding his legs, and he kicked his feet, sending the sheet sliding to the floor. His skin prickled in the room’s cool air, and he moaned with self-pity.
His night hadn’t been comforting and blissful, and that was the problem. Dreams of people with dragonfly eyes, lizard tails, and massive canine teeth had haunted him. He saw Marisa’s drawing of Halo Sunchaser slaying a silverback gorilla with her electrified sword, and in the dream, the gorilla had grown larger and larger, smashing the sword and Halo Sunchaser, and then coming after him.
In his mind’s eye, the gorilla had become King Kong, a fur-covered Hulk, ever larger, and raging after him. He had jerked awake just as the gorilla’s massive hand had wrapped around him and begun to squeeze—
Garik jerked up, sitting, his heart rumbling in his chest like the Bay City trains he sometimes heard at night from his bedroom. They squealed along the tracks to Argyle Station, inescapable, rattling the picture of his parents he kept alongside his bed. Sometimes they caught him unaware in the darkness, and they were an earthquake, about to bring the ceiling down on him.
Garik’s nightmare, the gorilla. A silverback, the largest and most powerful of them all. Garik made his way to the window, opened the blinds—squinting at the brilliance slicing into the room—and studied the bird that always flew from the tree outside his parent’s rock house. He wasn’t warmed or reassured by the scene. His night had done that to him, and he reached to the side and toggled the selector switch. The scene flickered and became a snow-covered mountain pass, the sky filled with clouds, and falling snow obscuring much of the image. The room darkened. He relaxed his eyes and turned away from the computer-generated scene.
The mall. The Howling Dactyls. Tonight was the night. His heart jumped, faster, although for a different reason. He rubbed his arms, the prickles like sandpaper, the feeling of excitement forcing the traumas of his night into the background.
And with Jantzen Hefferly and his purple mist. He wasn’t going to see him. He would be with him.
He could hardly wait.
ARRIVING AT the event might be the focus of the day but preparing for the evening on the mall promised to consume Garik’s time and attention.
Jantzen arrived to escort him to breakfast. He was now regularly eating in the cafeteria on Level 1, sometimes escorted by T’Wana or Van, but today, Jantzen assured Garik he had checked him out “like a book at a library” and they would spend the day together, unless Garik wanted some alone time in his room.
“No way,” Garik had retorted. “I’m with you.”
Jantzen had laughed. The man was freshly crisp, unlike after his transformation and altercation with Justin Kurtew and his flashing knives. That evening, Jantzen had offered to give the ZBoard a permanent home in Garik’s room, if he wanted.
Two men who introduced themselves as Joseph Howard and Tyrone Brown had arrived the next morning and installed a permanent charging station for the ZBoard. Both men’s shirts said Maintenance, but Joseph was the older and came across as the leader. Tyrone smiled a lot, flashing white with his grin. Now, when Jantzen arrived, if he had his Segway, Garik automatically pulled his powered skateboard from the wall. They would be heading on an excursion through the massive basement complex of the Corona Tower, wherever the adventure might take them.
At breakfast on Friday, Jantzen suggested Garik consider the weather for their night on the mall. Today was hot in the real world—meaning summer wasn’t yet over—and while it would cool quickly once the sun was down, powerful patio heaters would be set up around the mall. They weren’t likely to get cold before the event ended.
Garik wanted to look his best, and with Jantzen’s advice, he chose a lightweight, flower print button-up shirt with a black background, dark gray summer slacks, and black loafers. Jantzen arrived at his door in a thin, long-sleeved black pullover with a hood at his back, black gloves, and lightweight black slacks. His black brogues were polished to a shine. With his tight black hair and closely cropped beard, he was transformed into the man Garik had seen so lo
ng ago on the food court screens, promoting his upcoming event on the mall. To be here, to be part of it, and with the man himself, was as exciting as Garik thought his week could be.
He couldn’t wait to get upstairs—under the stars, if there were any—and be a part of something he had been excluded from his entire life. He didn’t know if he would dance like he’d seen people do from his voyeuristic forays from atop his Street Strider, but he was certain he would stand with his arms to the sky as the silicon glitter tumbled around him, and it would be the best night of his life.
Then, tomorrow, he could start in earnest on his Houdini project . . . to get out of this place and back to the life the Tower had stolen from him. He had come to look forward to spending time with Jantzen Hefferly, but that wasn’t enough. He missed Marisa, even Irina, if Arik not so much. He hadn’t known how much he loved his life until he was inducted unwillingly into whatever they were doing to him here.
He refused to think about the changes he had seen in the people living under the mall in the Tower’s basement. He was still Garik. He looked the same, except for his hair. He had been to the activity center with Devon twice, and he was sure his body was tightening up. No fantastical teeth, no fur down his backbone, no nothing, except for the bad dreams.
He wanted his life back, but if he had to be here, it couldn’t hurt to end it with a night on the mall.
Bam, this could be exciting, and Garik felt it in every fiber of his being.
THEY RODE to the mall, Jantzen on his Segway, and Garik atop his powered skateboard. They passed the elevator they normally used, and Garik did his best to remember the twists and turns to reach the main elevator, the one he and Marisa had ridden the day they dropped into the cesspool he was trapped in. It figured large in his plans to disappear from the Tower’s clutches.
Like a Houdini, or a Hefferly. Flash, vanish, and he would be gone.
Garik noted the military personnel at the doors, an extra guard, one at each of the two elevator cars, even with Jantzen’s passkey required for access. At the mall level, the elevator doors opened, and they stepped out into the food court. Garik glanced at the food kiosk where he had so many times purchased a drink or fries, surprised, somehow, to see it shuttered. That small moment cemented the difference between then and now. He wasn’t stepping back into his old life but living in this new one, even if this was an old, familiar haunt. Around him, the glass walls enclosing the food court were still retracted, leaving the giant glass tower in its permanent spider mode, hunched on its steel and brick legs, ready to feast on whoever or whatever came within its reach.
It had sure feasted on him, Garik thought dryly, even as his new shirt caught the light breeze and moved across his chest, the touch of the soft fabric reminding him he was arriving first class, unlike what he would have done if Muhammad had been able to land tickets that unlucky morning.
The mall was tantamount with attendees, few of them as tamely dressed as Garik and Jantzen. A military presence was also scattered around the walls and at various places throughout the event. The Dactyls were in full regalia, with their feathered masks and sequin-encrusted boots, and they were tuning their instruments. It was as discordant as if they intended to hurt people’s ears, but it was a Rez band, and that’s what Rez bands sounded like.
As the music began to come together, Jantzen walked the mall, greeting people, laughing with a few, and introducing Garik to faces he’d never seen. He looked for Airman Wu Han but didn’t see him. There were so many military personnel in attendance that he would have been surprised if he had. Of course, Devon was present, with his blond cowlick, but in party mode, with a giant balloon crown topped with a sea serpent. And Amy, in yards of luminescent material, dancing in circles as though flying. Even Marina and Hector. He didn’t recognize Marina until she spoke with him. She had on a party mask that covered her eyes, but he knew her voice when she called out to him. Hector seemed to be pickpocketing careless attendees, and Garik understood the reason his apartment looked the way it did.
As the night got wilder and the sky drew darker, Garik kept waiting on the silicon glitter to fall from the sky. Finally, Jantzen asked what he was looking for, and he laughed, explaining that the visual effects didn’t extend to those in the mall. They were in a “glitter-free zone.” He seemed to find it as amusing as Garik was disappointed.
The names Garik learned that evening stacked up in his mind: Paolo Leveen, with the ends of his fingers in long, claw-like nails. Joanie McDonald, who sported a mohawk. And Julia Cantos, unearthly tall; Giselle Harmon, wearing a pirate mask; Leigh Jose, with her arms crisscrossed with leather straps; and John Carter, who seemed to be a larger-than-life blond god, even fitter than Devon Maye.
At one point, Weston Rodheimer with his broad shoulders and Halo Sunchaser in her headwrap appeared. The excitement of the revelers seemed to diminish when Rodheimer drew near, but they didn’t come their direction and left shortly, at which point the noise level and partying ramped back up.
Justin Kurtew was there, but he didn’t come and introduce himself. He glared at Jantzen, took in Garik, and walked away. Jantzen pointed out Marco Lopez, wearing a large tail and finding it convenient to climb anything to get a better view. When Garik started to ask, Jantzen shook his head but mouthed, “Lemur.”
Garik understood. No discussing DNA mixtures or hybridizations on the mall. There had to be a place where what they had become was normalized. They could be as they were, not specimens to be poked, prodded, and evaluated.
Here, they were normal, because the not-normal ones were like Garik—and Jantzen, Garik supposed, although he could morph into purple mist, even if he looked totally normal otherwise.
Like me, and in that moment, Garik suffered an epiphany of despair. He was no longer normal, or he wouldn’t be eventually. What had Jantzen said? He didn’t know what changes would accelerate quickly and which would take a while. That meant that Garik wasn’t finished becoming whatever he would one day be.
Like these people. His head tightened, and he suddenly wanted to be away.
“Is there a problem?” Jantzen touched his elbow to get his attention.
“I used to think these were costumes. They’re not, are they?” Garik’s trust in the reality he used to take for granted teetered, his enthusiasm melting into a lump of soul-robbing despondency.
“Most are, but this is where our less favorable transformations can be themselves. Does it bother you?”
“No . . . yes! I don’t know.” Garik felt the gorilla’s hand whipping him back and forth, and he didn’t know what he thought any longer.
“Come, I want to tell you something that will help, I think.” Jantzen led him under the Tower to a vacant table marked on the top with Chow Down. He pulled out his earbud and turned off his watch on the way. The video screens around the underside of the Tower flashed and sparkled with the Dactyl’s flamboyant style. Several people were also taking a break under the tower, but they were nowhere nearby.
“So, what?” Garik felt his Arik voice coming out, and he sat up and apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m just grumpy. What did you want to tell me?”
“Grumpy, maybe, but you have good reason. Your life’s been stolen, like mine.”
“Like yours?” That caught Garik off guard. This was Jantzen Hefferly. Surely, he liked his life. He lived in the Tower, had power and respect, and he could change into purple mist at any time.
“You noticed the Director didn’t come our direction. We’ve had differences.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I cared for him once, really cared, before all this.” Jantzen motioned to the Tower above their heads and the people dancing in a frenzy on the mall. “I couldn’t tell him how I felt, so I supported his research. When his wife died, he changed. Now you see what he is.”
“No, I don’t see. What is he? He’s the boss, isn’t he?”
“Much more than that.” Jantzen laughed sourly and looked away. “He’s like us, you and me, ex
cept his transformation, well—” Jantzen paused and cleared his throat, “—maybe that’s not the best topic for discussion.”
“What? He looks okay to me.”
Jantzen tightened his jaw and looked out over the crowd. His lips barely moved as he responded, “Looks can be deceiving, my friend. For six months I nursed him, thinking he wouldn’t survive. Then I begged to be the second trial subject to have something in common with him. Now, it’s gone all wrong.”
In the noise, Garik had to listen hard to hear Jantzen’s response. He was certain the man hadn’t intended for him to hear.
That left him thinking. What’s gone all wrong? And how bad could things get? And finally, would it happen to him? He shivered, and he had a patio heater blowing right on him. With the night, it wasn’t hot enough to drive away his chill, and thinking about Jantzen’s words, he began to doubt that it ever would.
― 9 ―
GARIK’S PARTY ended long before the bigger party did.
He and Jantzen sat for a time, Jantzen wrapped in his thoughts, and Garik not knowing how to respond. Out on the mall, people were doing impossible stunts, twisting and jumping, perhaps even flying, although the stunts Garik saw couldn’t surely be real. People using drones, or perhaps leaping while attached to wires hooked to the building.
Eventually, Dr. Jimenez appeared out of one of the two elevator cars, pausing as if taken aback by a scene of unimaginable trauma and devastation. Perhaps to him it was. He was still neatly dressed in a hospital jacket, and he even wore a stethoscope around his neck, like he’d just come from the surgical ward.
Or it could have been his costume, but Garik doubted that.
Jimenez looked around, searching, and when he saw Jantzen, he nodded his head, satisfied, and walked briskly their direction. He was almost there when he realized Garik was with him, and he frowned for a moment before replacing it with a smile. Surprisingly, he acknowledged Garik before Jantzen.
