After The Apocalypse

by Roseman, Josh

  And then I feel...

  I feel...

  Heavier.

  The pain suddenly ceases, except for a last little pinch in my left wrist, and sensation comes back like a swarm of bees flying around inside my skin. The worst of it passes and the Professor helps me to sit up.

  “I’m sorry,” the Professor says again. “We didn’t want to hurt you.”

  I jerk my still-tingling body away from him and scoot backward until I’m against my balcony door. Professor Wedlund stands and steps away; his goons have already made their tranquilizer guns disappear into holsters I can’t see.

  There’s another goon, though, that I didn’t see before.

  No. Not a goon. A woman, small and birdlike -- I can’t help but think of all the Manic Pixie Dream Girls I’ve seen over the years -- wearing a casual business suit. She and the Professor look perfectly normal, which is I suppose part of their camouflage. They'd fit in just fine at my office.

  Of course, none of my co-workers -- or even my boss -- would have shot me up or stuck a device against the back of my neck.

  I slip my hand into my pocket and find a coin. I was able to bend a quarter while I waited in line at Target earlier today, but now... now I have nothing.

  More tears come to my eyes, but I fight them down.

  The Professor and the woman, who must have been in my bedroom while I was being assaulted, are talking about something -- she hasn’t found anything in my apartment that suggests I’ve been hiding my powers or actively trying to get them back, and he’s nodding along. The goons are at what I suppose is parade rest or whatever private security looks like when they’re not shooting at me.

  “Hey.”

  The Professor turns. “Andrea?”

  “Someone want to help me up?”

  He inclines his head at the nearest goon, and he moves to stand beside me. I hold out my arm and he takes it, lifting me easily to my feet. “Nice,” I say. I’m not exactly a small object, but he didn’t seem to exert himself at all.

  Not like I do when I snatch one of my little ten-pound hand-weights off the shelf, whip my arm around, and smash him across the face with it.

  I imagine I hear his nose crunch with the impact, but I’m past caring. The Professor is in charge, and he told these men to shoot me, and I want to know why.

  I’m across the room quickly -- faster than normal, but still not as fast as I was this morning. Goon #2 has enough time to pull his gun, but I slam my fist -- the one holding the weight -- into his stomach and he jolts backward. The gun falls, but he recovers much faster than I’d expected; he catches my left fist, pulls me off-balance, and shoves me hard across the room. I trip over my feet and catch myself on the dining table, my face hitting the flat wooden surface, but before I can recover, the goon’s big body is behind me, bending over me, holding me down in a full-nelson.

  My neck is exposed. I start to fight, hard as I can, but he’s just too much, and the burn of the Device against my mark rips along my nervous system again. “Help...” I moan, unable to get enough air to really scream it out. “Help... me...”

  There’s a yowl and a hiss, and I’m free. I manage to get to my feet in time to see Buffy dangling in mid-air, the goon holding her by the scruff of her neck, his face decorated with fresh, bloody scratches.

  That’s my girl.

  Buffy meows sharply, and I don’t understand a word she says, but it’s enough to know that, no matter what names she’s calling me, she loves me enough to jump on an attacker.

  I only have a split-second to act; I step toward Goon #2, turning sideways, still clumsy but I know there’ll be enough weight behind my kick to dislocate his knee if I hit him, and he pulls his gun, jamming the barrel into Buffy’s chest.

  “Stand down, Andrea,” the Professor says. “The darts are strong enough to stop you at full strength; I don’t want to risk killing your cat.”

  Now I know that, in real life, it’s not strictly necessary to cock a gun before shooting it, and my guess is that the tranquilizer guns are the same way, but that rough little click as the goon cocks his weapon is enough to make me drop to my knees. Through the open bedroom door, I catch a glimpse of Willow hiding under my bed -- good; at least she’s safe.

  “Now,” he says, “let’s get this over with.”

  I don’t let him touch me. I just pull my hair out of the way, baring the back of my neck to the Professor in a gesture that smacks of abject submission. I set my teeth as he comes closer, and a moment later the Device’s heat is coursing through my body again. He holds it there for a long time, maybe longer than ever, but I refuse to make any noise. I can’t stop the tears welling in my eyes, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of breaking me.

  He can take my powers, but he can’t have my obedience.

  He’ll never have that again.

  I take that thought with me as I pass out.

  ...fuzzy...

  ...fuzzy vision...

  ...someone talking...

  ...someone meowing...

  ...fight...

  ...she says to fight...

  ...too...

  ...tired...

  CHAPTER TEN

  HELPLESS

  +++++

  I wake up in bed, which I certainly hadn’t expected. And, what’s more, neither Buffy nor Willow is trying to get my attention.

  However, my clothes are all twisted--

  Wait. Why am I wearing my clothes? Why am I not in my pajamas?

  I sit up awkwardly. My answer is in a chair near the bedroom door.

  Professor Wedlund.

  “Shit.”

  “Good morning to you too, Andrea,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

  “Screw you.” I throw off the blanket and turn sideways, my feet thumping on the floor as I stand up. I can already tell my powers are gone, and I’m refusing to process that at the moment. “What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”

  “Waiting for you to wake up.”

  I shake my head and go into the bathroom. He’s still there when I come out, hands washed and teeth brushed. “You want to maybe get out of here? Let me get out of these clothes?”

  “Andrea, we have to talk.”

  I go over to the dresser and take out a t-shirt and yoga pants. No way am I going into the top drawer with him sitting there. “I’ve been in these clothes since yesterday. I’d really like to change.”

  “Andrea--”

  I slam my palm against the top of the dresser, hard enough that the stuff on it rattles. I speak through clenched teeth. “Would you please... get the fuck... out of my bedroom?”

  The answering silence is annoyingly mild, but he does take the hint. He even closes the door on his way out.

  Great. Now I can go back to the bed, flop down on it, and let out all the sobs I’ve been fighting since the moment I saw him.

  I allow myself about two minutes of tears and whispered curses before I realize that it’s not helping. Plus, Willow and Buffy have jumped up onto the bed, and Willow is pushing her head against my arm. I roll onto my side and pet her; from a couple of feet away, near the pillow, Buffy stares accusingly at me. “I know,” I say, and then sniff. “I’m sorry. And I’m an idiot.”

  Well, that must have been the magic phrase; she walks over and scrapes her jaw against my fingertips. Willow meows a question, looking up at me with her gorgeous eyes, so large in her patchwork-quilt face. “I don’t understand. Not anymore.” A lump grows in my throat. “He took my powers.”

  Buffy stretches out, prone, and I stroke the soft fur of her side where Goon #2 stuck his gun. “Thank you,” I say, the words catching. “Thank you for trying.” She doesn’t meow, but she purrs softly, and I feel it under my hand as I pet her. “If I get my powers back again, you can call me names all you like.”

  “Andrea?”

  That’s the Professor. Clearly he’s not even going to allow me this. Ass. “Just a minute!”

  I get changed, taking the time to comb out my hair
and put it in a ponytail, and then go into the living room. The Professor is sitting at my table, hands folded. He nods at the chair beside him, but I’ll be damned if I let him get that close again. I sit across from him instead. “So. What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about what happened.”

  I make a sort of “humpf” sound at him. “You mean, you want to talk about your goons shooting me up with tranquilizers and then threatening to kill my cat until I submit to your will? Until I give up my powers for you? Again?”

  “In a nutshell, yes.” He pauses and sighs. “Andrea, I never wanted it to come to this. There’s a reason we did what we did--”

  “And that’s another thing,” I say, butting in. “Who’s this ‘we’? I seem to remember it just being you and me the last time.” My eyes narrow. “Are you telling me there’s a whole Council of Watchers that you neglected to mention when I was a teenager?”

  “We’re not called the--”

  “I know you’re not!” I shout. “I’m not an idiot; I know television isn’t real!”

  “Andrea, please calm down--”

  “No!” I push away from the table and stand up, walking into my living room. I stare out the window for a long moment before turning to face him. And, damn him, he still looks like he has nothing but my best interests at heart. “My powers,” I finally say. “They made me who I was, back in high school. They were a huge part of my life -- them, and saving the world.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “No. I don’t think you do.” I feel tears prick at my eyes, but I ignore them as best I can; if I fight, I’ll only cry again. “I was strong -- strong like an Amazon.” Quoting that line makes my lips turn upward slightly. “I was able to save people’s lives. Do you know what it’s like to lose that?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “No. I don’t.” He moves into the living room and sits on my couch; I’m standing by the television, looking down at him. “But just because you didn’t have powers didn’t mean you couldn’t become a police officer, or a firefighter, or a doctor or paramedic. There were plenty of ways you could’ve helped people. You chose to go into finance, and I supported you.”

  “Yeah. You did.” I chuckle, the sound dry in my throat. “Y’know, for someone who’s supposed to be an anthropology professor, you don’t know much about humanity.” I sit on the coffee table, close enough to touch him. I’m actually rather surprised that he doesn’t try to move away, in case I hit him, but then he never was afraid of me. Even when I was strong enough to end him before he could blink. “You ripped away something that made me who I was. How did you think I was going to feel?”

  “Relieved.”

  That surprises me. I blink a couple of times before speaking. “Relieved? How?”

  “Andrea,” he says, “you were a fifteen-year-old girl when you first learned that you were special--”

  “I was always special,” I snap. My parents used to say that to me all the time -- that I was special. I will not let him have that. “Try again.”

  “Fine. You were fifteen when you first got your powers, and you got them at the worst possible time -- when I wasn’t there to help you through it.” Okay, I’ll give him that; when he finally approached me, a week after I got back from camp, he was helpful, if a little more severe than he should’ve been. At least, in my opinion. “They changed you from a normal high school student into the hero that would fight in the battle to save our world.”

  “I know all of this,” I say. “You told me the last time: every decade, the forces of evil invade our world at a location of their choosing, and humanity gets one hero whose job it is to stop them before they turn earth into hell. Fate of the world, blah-blah-biddy-blah, I’m so stuffy, give me a scone.”

  The Professor puts his head on one side. “What?”

  Now I blush. “Sorry. Buffy moment.”

  He sighs. “You know, that show influenced you far too much.”

  “Be that as it may. You took away my powers; don’t take away my Buffy.” I hold his eyes a moment. “I spent three years fighting things that could kill me without a second thought. Odds were I’d be dead after the final battle. But I survived, and you weren’t expecting that.” He starts to speak, but I hold up a hand. “Yes, I know, you had a contingency plan, and you took care of me and made sure I could go to college and have a life. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that, because I absolutely do.” He has the grace not to say anything, and the wisdom to let me get all my words out. “You took away my powers -- you took away something that made me the woman I was -- and I had no one to talk to about it.”

  “You could’ve talked to me--”

  “You’re the one who did it!” I stand up, stalk back to the table, and face him again. “You took my powers away! And last night you did it again!”

  He’s quiet for a long moment, but then says, “when did you figure it out?”

  “That you took my powers? That I didn’t just lose them spontaneously after the final battle?” He nods. I fold my arms and glare at him. “Yesterday. When I finally put it all together: the Device, the powers, and getting them back.”

  “I shouldn’t have sent you away,” he says. “Friday, I mean. I should’ve sent you to my office to wait while I cleaned up.”

  “‘Cleaned up’? That’s one hell of a euphemism.” A pause. “What exactly did you do, anyway?”

  “Not important for you to know. Not right now.”

  “Bullshit!” It’s a scream, primal, hot and loud and throat-achingly satisfying. “Bullshit! Bullshit bullshit bullshit!”

  “Andrea, calm--”

  “No! Fuck you! I fucking ki--”

  “Andrea!”

  The panic in his voice is enough to make me stop. I step sideways, practically falling into a chair, and I put my face in my hands. “I killed him,” I whisper. “I slung him against a desk, I crushed his throat, and I let him die without even trying to save him.” The tears come, just as hot as the scream, dripping through my fingers to plop quietly on the carpet. “What did you do?”

  I feel him come close to me, put his hand on my shoulder. Despite myself, despite my anger and frustration, it still feels good to have him comfort me like this. Once my parents were gone, he was all I had, and he was a pretty decent stand-in father-figure. Never going to replace my real dad, but he tried to help, in his way. “I know people,” he finally says. “I called them, and they came. They talked to the police, and the police talked to the girl--”

  “They found her?” I look up at him. “Is she okay?”

  “No,” the Professor says. “She isn’t. And we’re the ones who found her.” ‘We’? “But she confirmed that she was raped, and they found DNA matching her attacker with a man killed in a car accident--”

  “Car accident?”

  He gives me a long-suffering glare, one that isn’t entirely hostile. I know he hates when I interrupt him. “As far as anyone knows, he drove off the road, and he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He hit his throat on the steering wheel, and it was crushed.”

  “Doesn’t make me feel any better.” I wipe my face on my sleeve, and he stands behind me, both hands on my shoulders now. His fingers are strong, digging into my muscles, working out the tension. “Thank you.”

  “I’m here for you,” he says. “I care about you, Andrea; you know that.”

  “I know.” And, in his weird way, he does. “Even though you took away my powers.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “But why?” I ask. “Why did you have to do it then? Why did you have to do it last night?”

  He doesn’t answer -- not right away, anyway. He goes into my kitchen and I hear him tear off a paper towel; he hands it to me, and I blow my nose. Then he pulls out the chair beside me and lowers himself into it. “What you had to do when you were a teenager... no one should have to go through that. No one person should have the weight of the world on her shoulders.” He sighs. “But yo
u did, and you survived, and you saved us all.”

  “But why?”

  He slowly closes his eyes, takes a couple of deep breaths, opens them again, and looks hard at me. “Because if there’s enough good in the world to give you your powers, then there’s enough evil in the world to allow the Dark King to rise again.”

  I feel my eyebrows draw down. “You said he comes back anyway--”

  “I know what I said.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “The stories say that the only way to stop the Dark King for good is to make him decide to end the Agreement.” I only know a little about the Agreement -- it’s what allows the Dark King to attack humanity once a decade, and what bestows upon one human being, such as myself, the power to stop him. “If he chooses to end the Agreement, then the cycle breaks. But as long as someone has the power to stop him, he is allowed to keep fighting. It’s like extra time in football.” It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about soccer; I always forget that he was born in Europe and only moved here after living there for thirty years. “Once the Dark King is defeated, the powers must be removed or he still has the right to keep fighting.”

  “Is that why all the final battle plans ended in someone’s death?” I never really thought about it before, and it has been eleven years after all, but I’ll never forget that last strategy session, the one where we came up with the plan for me to take on the Dark King and defeat him at the cost of my own life. Clearly it didn’t go that way, but if what the Professor is saying is true... I swallow hard. “What happened the last time someone didn’t die in the final battle?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Great Chicago Fire?”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  I nod. “Oh.” I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but I do know that it razed a huge chunk of the city and killed hundreds of people. “The Dark King did that?”

  “He did. It only stopped when Noah Lambert, who was 23 at the time, went into the blaze and gave his life to stop the Dark King. As he should have done five years previously.”

  “Should have--”

  “Should have.” The Professor’s eyes are hooded and sad. “The Device wasn’t developed until the 1950s, and it used to be much more painful and invasive. You should be glad that all you feel is a little burn.”