The Pen is Mightier

by J. A. Cipriano

  Then I made a quick cup of coffee with the Keurig Marty and I had gotten from a garage sale. It was always a little weird to me because it was bright pink, but the price had been good. Only, as I stared at it, I decided I wanted a manlier color, like, I dunno, black.

  With a stroke of my pen, the coffee maker changed before my eyes. Then I grabbed my cup and took a sip. Battery acid. It wasn’t surprising because we only had the cheap stuff.

  Another note later, I inhaled the heavenly scent of Sumatra before taking a sip of coffee that lit up all my pleasure centers. Savoring the mouthful, I sat down at my computer. Then because it booted slowly, I used the pen to make my laptop top of the line because my time was valuable.

  I sat there, staring at the screen for a moment wondering what the hell to even search for. An idea occurred to me. I grabbed the pen beside my pen and wrote a quick line.

  Give me a computer program to help me find information about the pen.

  Crazily, unlike last time, the words sat there on the page, not vanishing like last time I’d tried to just “know things” about the pen. A smile flitted across my lips as I turned back to the computer and found a new icon on the screen. Pen.exe

  I clicked it, and a screen that looked remarkably like a dos prompt filled the screen.

  Would you like to perform a search? Y/N

  I quickly typed yes and hit enter, bringing up a new prompt.

  Type Query:

  The cursor sat there blinking as I thought. Then I wrote Magic Pen and hit enter.

  A half-second later, my screen exploded into an interface with links to websites, videos, and all other sorts of things. After the first few clicks came up with references to a magic pen in every television show, movie, and story ever told, I realized I had a problem. In short, I’d asked for too much information, too generally.

  Clicking back to the prompt window, I chewed on my lip. Then, remembering the midget’s name, I added an additional query.

  “John A. Tenner”

  This time, there were a lot fewer results. Mostly tangential articles that talked about a guy named John A. Tenner and while none of them mentioned a magic pen specifically, there was one article from the nineteen twenties that talked about him attributing his bestselling novel to his lucky pen, but not a lot else. There were also a few pictures, and while the man in them looked nothing like a midget since he was full grown, with a bald head and a patchy beard, the pen was the same one I was holding now.

  It was weird, as I stared at the rest of the results, it was almost like he’d tried to erase his existence and nearly succeeded. There wasn’t much else about him, no birth or death certificate.

  “You can’t really be a ghost,” I mused, going back to the search prompts and typing in a few additional query strings so it would try to find his known associates.

  A second later, my screen filled with a list of names associated with John A. Tenner, and as I checked through them, I saw the exact same pen. I wasn’t sure if it was still John or an alias, but a hundred years’ worth of photos made one thing clear. While I wasn’t sure if all the photos were of different people or of the same guy changing his appearance, I was sure some of the people in the group photos knew about the pen. Even if John didn’t come to take the pen, it wouldn’t be long before someone found me and came to take it.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried not to panic. This was bad. Really bad. No wonder I felt like I was being watched. Worse, if they could track me and the pen, I had to do something, had to stop fucking around and get serious. I wasn’t even sure what the extent of the power I actually had was, and after another two hours on my computer, I was no closer to finding the truth. It was especially frustrating because I’d have thought that between the pen and my new program, I’d have found out easily enough, but there was definitely something that was keeping my pen from working.

  I learned that when a stroke of the pen in combination with my searches brought up a list of everyone who had ever known Brad Pitt (I was doing an experiment) and nothing about Wayne Danners. That was one of the names I’d seen popping up most frequently along with John Tenner. The thing was, the program hadn’t even listed them as contacts, and it was the same for most of the other names I found in connection with the pen.

  “That’s it!” I smirked, leaning back in my chair. “If nothing is coming up for these people, it has to be because of the pen. Otherwise, it’d work.” I leaned back in my chair and thought for a moment. Maybe the key was trying to fixate on them in particular.

  Give me knowledge of all counter-evasion tactics.

  A metric ton of information slammed into my brain in an instant, and as it did, I realized I’d been going about this all wrong. I couldn’t even hide, if they wanted to find me, they would. There were just too many ways they could do it, and as I set about writing down ways to stop them, I began to get discouraged. While some of my lines worked, most didn’t.

  “The question is why…” I murmured after another hour.

  “Why are you talking to yourself?” Marty asked, and as I turned to look at him, his eyes widened. “And when did you get biceps?” He took a deep breath looking at me. “Like I’m not even kind of gay, and right now I almost want to touch you.”

  “How is Lisa? Gail came by looking for her but fell asleep in your room.” I shrugged, trying to change the subject. Part of me wanted to tell him, but most of me was worried about what would happen if he knew the truth. What would he think or do? Would he try to take it from me?

  Marty stared at me for a long time, not saying anything. Then he blew a frumpy lock of hair out of his eyes and sat back. “It went as well as can be expected. She needs time to sort things out.” He flushed slightly. “I’m excited to see if we can make something happen.”

  He pulled a banana out of the bowl in the center of the table and began to peel it as he sat down beside me.

  “Um… I’m not sure whether to say I’m sorry, or I’m happy.” I looked at my coffee and was surprised to find I’d only drank a few sips, and now it was cold. Snatching it off the table, I moved to heat it in the microwave.

  “It’s six of one and half a dozen of another.” Marty shrugged as I put my coffee in the microwave and hit the beverage button. “But you didn’t explain the muscles. I know you, man. You didn’t have them earlier.”

  “You’re not going to believe me, but I found a magic pen.” I smiled at him, trying my best to not look like I was crazy. “Seriously.”

  “Fine. If you don’t want to tell me, I won’t press the issue.” He crossed his arms over his chest, clearly annoyed. “But if I knew how to have a body like that, I’d share it with you because we’re bros.”

  That may or may not have been true, but I figured it was. The thing was, I had told him.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Dude. I’m not an idiot. Magic pens aren’t a thing.” Marty glared at me. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are friends.” Marty huffed out a breath as an idea sprang to my mind. “I’ll prove it. Give me one second.”

  “Whatever.” He took a bite of his banana and looked toward the window as I dashed to my room and grabbed the scratchers I’d bought earlier.

  He’d finished the banana and was looking in the fridge when I return.

  “Here.” I handed them to him.

  “This is just a bunch of lotto tickets,” he said, taking the scratchers and staring at them with confusion. “They can’t give you that body.”

  “Yeah, the pen does that,” I said, pulling out my notepad. “There’re five tickets. Give me five number values.”

  “What?” he asked, looking from the tickets to me and back again. “I don’t understand.”

  “How much do you think each one will win?” I asked, readying my pen. “Realistic numbers, please.”

  “Um… I dunno.” He shook his head. “Probably nothing.”

  I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands. “Bro, stop being difficult. Just pick five nu
mbers.”

  “Fine.” Marty looked down at the tickets, thinking. Then he pointed at the first one. “Twenty-five bucks.” When I nodded, he continued. “Seven, fifty-two, eighty-seven, four-hundred-sixty-three.”

  “Got it,” I said, handing him a quarter after I finished writing. “Scratch them.”

  “Is this some kind of trick?” he asked, taking the quarter and looking at me. “I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove…”

  “Scratch them,” I repeated, and then I stared at him until he did it.

  “Fine,” he mumbled, taking the quarter to the first scratcher. Only, as he finished it, his eyes widened. “I won twenty-five dollars.” He swallowed. “How did you…?”

  “Finish them,” I said, unable to keep my smile from leaking into my voice.

  “Right, you’re fucking with me, but I’m going to go along with it,” he said, voice half dazed as he hurriedly scratched off the next ticket, revealing seven dollars.

  He took a deep breath, looking at me wide-eyed before quickly finishing the rest, so he was looking at a fifty-two dollar winner, an eighty-seven dollar winner, and a four-hundred-sixty-three dollar winner.

  “This isn’t possible,” he said, looking at me. “How did you do that?”

  “I have a magic pen.” I gave the pen a waggle at him. “Pretty much whatever I write comes true.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He shook his head. “There’s no way a pen could do that.”

  “Dude, seriously? You just won the exact values you said at random.” I reached out and tapped the stack of tickets with the pen.

  “You’ve gotta be faking it somehow.” He looked up from the tickets and stared at me. “Do something else.”

  “Like what?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I dunno, cure cancer or something.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I can’t,” I sighed, shaking my head. “I stopped at the local VA yesterday before I came to get you and tried things like that. Basically, I can make the treatment they are on work if it does or can work, but if there’s no actual cure, well, the pen doesn’t do anything. I also can’t make myself fly or shoot optic blasts.”

  “So… the pen just makes things that are actually possible happen?” he asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He was starting to get it, which was good because I wanted to share this with him and have him help me figure out what to do, not spend the evening trying to prove myself.

  “I think so.” I nodded to him. “Based on what I’ve seen, anyway.”

  “Yeah, not buying it.” He shook his head. “How about you just tell me the truth?”

  “How about you hop on one leg while yodeling Call me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen?” I said as I wrote the line down.

  “I will not—” He stopped mid-sentence, got to his feet and began to hop on one foot. Then he started yodeling.

  When he was done, he glared at me. “Not cool, bro.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I rubbed my left ear with my knuckle. “You’re a terrible yodeler.”

  “Whatever,” he waved a hand through the air, and while he was mad at me as he opened his mouth to say something else, his face softened before going wild with excitement. “Dude, we need to go to Vegas. Like right fucking now.” He smacked his hands on the table. “I mean it. We can live like goddamned kings!”

  “Vegas?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “That’s like four hours from here.” I shook my head. “That’s not even what we should be doing. There might be people after me, after the pen.”

  “Even more reason to leave. I’m guessing you haven’t made it so people can’t track you. How long is it before someone shows up here?” He shook his head even though I had tried writing a billion variations of that very thing. “No, we need to go elsewhere, somewhere where we can build up some cash and disappear into a crowd.” He nodded to me in the way he did when he really wanted me to go along with his plan. Unfortunately, I knew that even if it did work, it wouldn’t be for long. “Vegas is perfect for both those things.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused even as I wrote a few lines to clear myself from the public database. While I didn’t want to not exist, I wanted to make it hard for people to find out where I lived. The thing was, those lines didn’t work, and they should have. Marty was right. There had to be someone immune to my pen that already knew where I lived. If not, it’d have worked. Or at least, that was my current theory.

  “I mean we’re going to board a private jet to Vegas and get some booze, babes, and bitches. That way, there will be no record of where we are.” He moved to the cupboard and pulled out the bottle of Popov we kept there. “But before that, we need some new phones.” He nodded. “Some burners, and we’ll pay for everything with cash.” He poured the alcohol into a couple of shot glasses. “No wonder you had me quit my job!”

  As he continued babbling, I suddenly had a bad feeling about telling Marty. Sure, all the things he’d said were actually possible, but at the same time, this was definitely out of my comfort zone. Maybe it was good I had him? I wasn’t sure, and even though my gut told me I’d made a huge mistake, he was my friend.

  “You said babes and bitches,” I said, swallowing hard. “And I’ve got three naked women in the apartment. We don’t need to go anywhere for that.”

  “Yeah, but I’m guessing you already fucked them.” He put one of the glasses in my hand while he threw his arm around me and made a sweeping gesture toward the wall. “We can be high rollers. Hell, we can have a penthouse full of women, and with your power, we can hide forever.” He disengaged and held his glass out to me. “Drink up.”

  “I’m not drinking this,” I said as I looked down at the vodka. “This stuff sucks.”

  “Yes, you are.” He clinked his glass against mine. “Bottoms up.”

  “Just wait a second,” I said, quickly changing the Popov into Grey Goose. “Now try.”

  “What did you do?” He gave me a weird look. “Not trying to roofie me, are you?”

  “Dude, if I wanted to fuck you, I could literally make you do it.” I downed the vodka. It burned all the way down before slamming into my stomach like a freight train.

  “I’m glad you’re not into me then,” Marty said, a touch of fear in his voice as I stood there, trying not to throw up from the shot. The initial moment after the shot always made me feel a bit queasy, but I knew it would pass. “And I’m digging the whole water into wine thing you did.” Marty poured another shot and handed it to me.

  Not wanting to get into specifics about how I might not be able to turn water into actual wine, I took it from him and joined him in a second shot. As soon as I finished, he smiled.

  “Good, that should be enough for now.” He thumped me on the shoulder. “Now, why don’t you write us up a limo?”

  “But what about the girls?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder. “They’re still asleep.”

  “Write ‘and then they all found their way home with no problems.’” He began to pour another shot. “God damn this is going to be good.”

  As I thought about what he said, I nodded. We did need to leave if the midgets were after us, and it would be better if nothing bad happened to them. Taking a deep breath, I wrote down what he’d told me along with a few more lines ensuring their safety and whatnot. It hurt a bit because even though we hadn’t spent a lot of time together, I liked all of them. Still, it wasn’t quite safe here for them anymore, and especially not with me.

  24

  By the time we landed in Las Vegas an hour and a half later, I was pretty drunk. Marty had gone hard and fast on the limo’s free booze and hadn’t stopped when the elderly lady had let us join her on her private jet since she was already flying to Las Vegas.

  Now that we were here though, I was starting to feel pretty good about the idea, especially since I’d used my pen to make it so people didn’t notice when I was using it. That along with the line about people thinking I’d lost my pen still being in my notepad h
ad made most of my apprehension fade, and as Marty pulled me toward the waiting limo at the airport, I couldn’t help but smile.

  The whole thing felt so unreal. I mean, we were in Las Vegas, and not only had I never been here before, but I had the ability to fully take advantage of the place.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I asked as I slid into the waiting limo beside Marty. “See a show or something?” I blushed slightly. “I’ve never actually been to Vegas before.” I took a deep breath, looking around at all the huge buildings. It was still daytime, though it wouldn’t be for much longer, and part of me wished it was already night so I could see the strip all lit up.

  “The plan is we make some money.” Marty grinned at me as he gestured to the driver. “He’s taking us to the Cosmopolitan.”

  “The Cosmopolitan?” I asked, confused. “Is that a casino?”

  “Yeah. I’ve always wanted to stay there, but I could never afford it.” He looked me up and down. “And we need to get you some better clothes.”

  “What’s wrong with my clothes?” I said, fingering my black t-shirt. It, along with the jeans I was wearing, were the nicest things I’d owned.

  “Is that a real question? It’s time to suit up, bro.” He moved to the front of the limo and rapped on the window with his knuckles. It lowered in an instant, and the driver, a well-dressed black man, looked back at us.

  “Do you need something, sirs?” he asked, voice crisp, clean, and eager to serve.

  “Yeah. We need you to take us to the nicest tailor in town.” Marty jerked a thumb at me. “Because he looks terrible.”

  “Right away, sirs.” He nodded. “Whatever you need.”

  “But we don’t have any money, yet,” I lamented as the window rolled back up. “I thought the whole plan was to win a bunch of cash, and if we use our credit cards…” I shook my head already realizing he planned to have me use the pen.