So. Apparently if I'm feeling loathing at a target I'm not touching, the nanos will strike out at whatever's to hand. That's incredibly horrifying. And yet, when I look in the mirror again, all I see is resignation.
I walk back down the hall, trying to touch as little as possible, and re-enter Dr. Simmons's office.
“Hey, Doc? Do you have a mop? And gloves? And...a good excuse for why a sink is missing?”
- Chapter Six -
Back at home, I shuck off my clothes, get in the shower and try to relax. It has been a long and unpleasant day, and I can't even wallow in it; if I let myself get too carried away, things will start dissolving. So instead, I end up doing daily affirmations in the shower, reminding myself of everything that's good in my life.
I have a car again! Top of the list, easily. It's the American dream. The attendant debt is also part of the dream, I suppose. Americans have weird dreams, when you get right down to it. Still: no more bus shelters, no more bus. That's fantastic. And I am putting gloves on every time I drive until I kick this power, because I am not risking going back to that.
I have excellent parents. They raised me well, they're renting me the place that I live, they care about me and they express it during infrequent visits, so they're not constantly helicoptering my life. It's a good balance, and they're good people.
My job is great. It keeps me active, it's enjoyable, and there's most of an actual building where just months ago there was only a burned shell. There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing something tangible take shape like that.
I have friends who care about me; two of them, in fact. This is a bit weird, honestly, but overall a net positive. I've always been a loner, and just didn't bother to make lasting friendships. But I'm glad that Brian and Regina seem to be proving the exception there.
And finally, I have Netflix, an absolute godsend to binge-watchers and B-movie aficionados everywhere. Which is where I park myself post-shower, sprawled out on the couch in boxers with my mind disengaged.
An hour or so into the movie, my stomach informs me that I should get dinner. My brain informs me that perhaps my friends would also like dinner, and so I text Brian and Regina with, “Dinner tonight?”
A few minutes later, my phone buzzes, and I'm surprised to see that it's an actual phone call from Regina. Mildly concerned, I pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dan, it's me.”
“Yeah, what's up? Everything okay?”
“What? Yeah, oh yeah. I was just calling because Brian emailed me to ask me to let you know that his phone is broken.”
“Okay, what? Run that by me one more time.”
She laughs. “I got an email from Brian, saying that you texted while he was making dinner, and he dropped his phone in the sink.”
“Oh, man! Sucks. Sounds like it's just one of those days all around.”
“Yeah, something's probably in retrograde somewhere. Anyway, he's obviously already got dinner, and also now no phone, so he says he's staying in tonight.”
“Okay, cool. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Hey, Dan? Is everything all right with you and Brian?”
“Sure, as far as I know! Why, what's up?”
“I don't know. It just seems a little weird that he emailed me and not you.”
“Man just dropped his phone in the sink. He's probably a little frazzled. And not to point out the obvious, but you probably come to mind for him before I do. We're friends and all, but there's a hierarchy.”
“That's true,” Regina says, though something in her voice suggests that she doesn't agree with me. I figure that if she wants to vocalize those objections, she will, and otherwise I don't need to poke at them. We say our goodbyes, and I unpause the movie.
Fifteen minutes later, my stomach reminds me that friends or no friends, dinner still needs to happen, so I pause it again and ransack my house for food. This is about as exciting as my evening gets, at least until I check my phone to see an email from Brian.
There's no subject, but the preview line says “J. R. Dupont,” so I open it eagerly. Inside, it doesn't say much more. After his name, it says “Medical Litigation Support,” followed by an address downtown and a website. I browse around the website for a bit, but don't find the name “Jules” or anything directly linking him to Rossum Medical Supply. That is, until I get to the contact information. The phone number provided on the website matches the one I got from Nathan for Jules Dupont.
“All right, Ichabot!” I say out loud. “I'm on your trail now.”
Netflix and solitary living may make for a quiet life, but it's possible that I've ended up with a few quirks. Don't judge.
I've slightly overstated my case, of course. Finding a link to Ichabot is not quite the same as getting any closer to him. I have all sorts of links to him. Heck, I'm full of links to him. They're just not particularly willing to lead me to him in any way.
The same is likely to be true for Dupont. I mean, maybe not. Maybe if I call him, he'll be thrilled to tell me everything I want to know about the mad scientist who's afflicted me with superpowers, and who apparently runs a medical supply store in his spare time. But the more probable course of action is that he'll think I'm completely crazy, and hang up on me. It's the big disadvantage of cell phones; you never know where the person you're calling is, so it's hard to go corner them if they just cut you off.
Of course, Brian did provide me with his work address, so that makes my life a bit easier. And conveniently, the website's “Contact Us” page has a form to fill out, and one of the options under the “Reason” dropbox is “Make an Appointment.” Dupont's going to have a much harder time hanging up on me once I'm physically in his office. And through the magic of lying on the internet, I can get him to invite me in himself!
A new dropbox appears once I choose “Make an Appointment,” asking me to select what I need Dupont for. I choose “Expert Medical Testimony,” on the grounds that that's presumably where he makes his money, and therefore will be motivated to meet with me the soonest. This option is followed by a text box which instructs me to briefly describe the nature of my problem. After a moment's thought, I write:
I was electrocuted at work, and since then have been fired from several jobs. I need an expert to testify that it is my condition that is making it difficult for me to operate in a normal work environment.
Technically true! I mean, not the part where I need an expert, but everything else. The fact that my condition caused the electrocution, and also that it came in the form of lightning, doesn't need to be mentioned here. It would just confuse the matter.
I suppose I could have just lied and said I had a bad back or something, but there's no elegance to that.
With the bait set, I go to bed and sleep as well as I ever do these days. Which is to say, not particularly. The image of the dissolving rat haunts me, and variations on it make its way into my dreams all night. In one, I'm petting a dog, only to have it start screaming as its flesh is eaten away under my hands. In another, I'm walking around my house, the floor crumbling away beneath my bare feet.
And in the one that finally wakes me up, I'm back in the hospital bathroom, staring at my face in the cracked mirror. Filled with self-doubt and loathing for who I am and what I've become, I reach up with a single finger and poke myself in the forehead. My reflection shows no emotion as I do it, despite the blossoming pain that fills my head. The mirror shows my skin crawling away to reveal the skull behind it, every nerve howling as the destruction races its way across my face and down to cover my entire body, an agonizing process that seems to last for hours.
Finally, it's complete, but I'm not dead, exactly; just not there anymore. I still stare into the cracked mirror, which now reflects only an empty bathroom. I can't turn my head, can't change my view at all. I try to raise my hands or move my legs, but I can't feel anything there. It's just cold and still, staring into the broken mirror forever.
I wake up from that one still
cold, and find that I've kicked off my blankets somewhere in the night. They're not piled up on the bed, though, nor off to the side, and it's not until I've turned the light on and am blinking around the room in confusion that I notice I'm covered in dust. I've disintegrated my blankets in my sleep.
“Fantastic,” I complain to the empty room. “It's the superpowered version of wetting the bed.”
It could be worse, I suppose. At least I didn't wake up on the floor.
There's less than an hour to go before my alarm, and with the bedding missing there's not a lot of point in attempting to go back to sleep, so I once again make an early morning of it. Basically, this just involves an extra cup of coffee and screwing around online. I browse through the local news to see if there's any sign of someone causing potentially superpowered destruction, but there doesn't seem to be. A shame, really. If I've got powers, then I know my nemesis does, too, somewhere out there. And if they're not showing themselves, then I'm probably going to end up blindsided by them. Again.
Work goes well until, while not looking where I'm going, I walk into a stack of rebar and bang my shin painfully. I start to swear, suddenly have an image of the entire stack of rebar disintegrating while everyone looks on, and clamp down on my initial emotion. Instead of swearing, I end up grimacing and announcing loudly, “This rebar is my friend!” A couple of guys nearby turn to look quizzically, but they don't say anything.
I don't know why yelling makes things hurt less, but it does. And apparently when I yell while trying to stay positive, I declare friendship with inanimate objects. Now we know.
At the end of the workday, I check my phone to find an email from [email protected], inviting me to come in and talk more about my case. Rather than suggesting an appointment time, he just lists his office hours, so apparently I'm just supposed to come sit around his waiting room until he has time to see me. That's a jerk move, but on the other hand, I'm not doing anything for the rest of the day anyway, so I'll deal with it.
A short drive later and I'm finding street parking outside of a somewhat run-down brick office building, one identical tower among many. Inside, a dingy lobby hosts an elevator with a list of names and office numbers next to it. Dupont is on the third floor, so I take a rickety ride up there and make my way down a poorly-lit hallway to his office.
My fears about being stuck in the waiting area were unfounded. His office is only two rooms, with a water cooler and a sickly plant watching over three chairs in one, and a bookshelf and desk in the other. Dupont is behind the desk when I arrive, and rises to greet me when I walk in. This is clearly a one-man operation.
“Hello, can I help you?” He's a somewhat pudgy guy about my dad's age, with a receding hairline and glasses that cling closely to his face. He's got a trace of an accent that I can't quite place, something in the vowels.
He's looking at me expectantly, so I say, “Yes, I wrote you a message online. Through your website?”
“Oh, Dan Everton!” he says, and gestures at the chair on the far side of the desk as he sits back down. “Please, take a seat. So tell me about your condition. You were electrocuted?”
I sit down. “Yes. Well, that wasn't the start of it, actually. It was part of it. I've got – I'm sort of accident-prone. In ways I can't control.”
“Hm,” says Dupont, typing something on his computer. “And this was caused at work?”
“Well, actually I think it was caused by Rossum Medical Supply.”
Dupont looks up sharply. “How's that?”
“Your boss,” I say. “The owner, Doctor...” I let the sentence hang for a second, but Dupont doesn't fill anything in, so I continue. “Anyway, he was trying out a new medical device on me, and it had...side effects.”
Dupont shakes his head. “No, I don't think so.”
“I think I would know!”
“Rossum is simply a medical supply store. We don't do tests. We don't have any new technology. The most dangerous thing you'll find in that store is a Rascal scooter, and that's only dangerous if you run over your foot with it.”
This guy's either a good liar or completely unaware of what goes on behind the scenes at Rossum. If it's the former, he's not going to get me any closer to Dr. A. If he just doesn't know, though, then I might be able to convince him to help me.
“Look,” I say, leaning forward, “I'm not blaming you for this, and I'm not looking to get you involved, legally or otherwise. I just need to talk to Dr. A. And he's avoiding me.”
“I'm sorry,” says Dupont, “but I can't help you.”
He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, regarding me coldly.
“All I need from you is an address where I can find him. Even a phone number!”
“I'm sorry, but no. Please leave my office.”
“No, not until you help me. I've almost died several times because of him. I'm constantly under threat. Every –”
Dupont cuts me off with a short laugh. “Under threat? Initially, he was just getting you fired. Now it's your life?”
“I just wrote down the part about being fired because I thought that would get me in to see you!”
“You could have just walked in!” retorts Dupont.
“Well, I know that now! I didn't know you had such a rinky-dink operation.”
Dupont stands from his chair and points at the door. “Get out.”
“No. Will you help me?” I ask, also standing. We're glowering at each other across the desk now.
“No,” says Dupont.
“Fine,” I say, and with a push, I topple my chair over and stalk out of the office. Behind me, I hear a startled, “What?!”, which is probably the result of Dupont going to pick up the chair, and finding that it is currently dissolving into dust before his very eyes. I slam the door on my way out, then disintegrate the doorknob as well.
Petty, yes, but it feels good. The most dangerous thing there is a scooter, indeed. What a smug jerk.
My self-righteous satisfaction has faded by the time I get back to my car, and I sit down in the seat with a heavily exhaled breath. Pulling out my phone, I reply to Brian's email:
Dupont was a bust. Either didn't know anything, or was covering it up well. Probably a dead end, but I'm going to see where he goes after work, just in case it's anywhere interesting. If you don't hear from me again, this was a bad choice.
I copy Regina and the doc on it, too, just in case either of them has anything useful to suggest. Also, I was only half-kidding about the “if you don't hear from me again” part. Probably everything's going to be fine, but on the off-chance that this goes horribly wrong, I'd like as many people as possible to know where I last was, and who was there with me.
I lean my seat back so that I can see the front door of Dupont's building in my side-view mirror without sitting up, check my cell phone for the time and settle in to wait. The office hours he sent me suggest that he won't be going anywhere for at least three hours, but it's possible that I've thrown his day into disarray. If he does know anything about Ichabot's secret business, he'll almost certainly be contacting him now.
I should have dissolved his phone. Then again, I want him to contact his boss, so that I can trail him to a meeting. Anyway, it's not like he doesn't have a cell phone.
Speaking of which, I check mine again. No time has passed since I looked less than a minute ago. It's going to be a long three hours. Minimum; that's if he leaves right at the end of his office hours. What if he does administrative work after? I could be here all night.
I probably have time to go get some food right now. But if I'm wrong and he takes off while I'm gone, I'll never even know that he left. I could end up sitting here watching an empty building. Well, not empty, but empty of my target, anyway.
I sigh and browse the internet on my phone, keeping the mirror with the building's entrance in the edge of my vision. I don't know how anyone conducted a stakeout before the internet.
For that matter, I don't know how anyone conducts a stakeout now
. In TV shows, it usually goes, “Settle in. This could be a long night,” and then a quick cut to, “Wake up! Something's happening.”
I don't have a partner to wake me up, so it had better not be that long of a night. Come to think of it, though, I do know someone who should be a little more knowledgeable about stakeouts. I flip through my contacts and call Officer Peterson, my friend in the police department.
“Friend” might be a strong word. Supporter? Aider and abetter? He picks up when I call, at least.
“Mr. Everton.” He sounds wary.
“Officer Peterson! Hello. How've you been?”
“Fine. Please tell me you're calling before you've created a situation this time.”
“Hey, ow. Everything's fine here.”
“Mhm. Are you manifesting again?”
“Am I what?”
“Are you displaying new powers, indicating a likelihood of upcoming damage to the political and physical landscape of my otherwise fair city?”
“I mean, I wouldn't have put it that way, but yeah. I can, uh...dissolve things now.”
“Good. That doesn't sound destructive at all,” Peterson says dryly.
“Well, I'm not doing it,” I say defensively, which is technically true in the immediate sense.
“I'm glad to hear that.” There's a pause, after which he says, “Was that all?”
“Yeah, I mean, you've repeatedly asked to be in the loop, so I'm just letting you know.”
“Thank you for that consideration, Mr. Everton.”
“Yeah, absolutely. Hey, while I have you here, though: can you give me any tips on stakeouts?”
There is an extremely loaded silence on the other end of the phone, followed by, “The best tip I can give you is that they should be left to the police. Handled by private citizens, they are more commonly referred to as 'stalking.'“
“Oh, sure, I'll pop right down to the station to fully explain this situation,” I say sarcastically.
“Mr. Everton. Please trust that resources are being devoted to your problem.”
Everything Falls Apart Page 5
