Corrupts Absolutely?

by Peter Clines

  Mark’s face was twisted, not young at all. He slammed his fist into the Scorpion’s shoulder like a kid having a temper tantrum. The Scorpion grunted and heard the distinct snap of his shoulder dislocating on impact. A bolt of pain jigged through his body, but the pain felt so good!

  The Scorpion giggled, brought his knee up, fully intending to drive it into Mark’s groin, but Mark launched himself into the air and hung suspended above him like a man on invisible wires. The Scorpion took a moment to admire the feat before rolling away and rising shakily to his feet. He tottered like a broken toy. Seconds later, Mark slammed his big fist into the ground, breaking the concrete.

  Mark screamed.

  The Scorpion laughed, snapped his shoulder back into place like a Lego toy, and brought his gun up. But before he could find his target, Mark flew right into him, driving him into the wall of the building behind them. The Scorpion heard other bones crackle, and the sweetness of nearly unendurable pain swept over him, making him groan in appreciation. Now this…this was a good conversation!

  Mark held him effortlessly against the wall. His strength was enormous. He gut-punched the Scorpion so he sagged against the wall, coughing and spitting up gobs of blood. Mark pushed his face close, so close that the Scorpion could smell the blood from his once-broken teeth on his breath. “You’re not so tough now, tough guy. Just another lowlife piece of shit to clean up…”

  The Scorpion lunged at him, snarling and biting off the tip of his nose. Mark hadn’t expected that. He screamed and yanked his head back, letting his enemy go and retreating as blood gusted over them both from the bloody hole in Mark’s face. “I know they sent you!” the Scorpion laughed hysterically as he savored all the blood in his mouth. In the back of his mind, he knew he sounded like a hyena, like his clone brother Wolf, a man so evil and erratic even the Reich would have nothing to do with him. “I know who they are!” He tried to lift the heavy Sting, but with his injured shoulder, he could find no purchase.

  “You are one fucking crazy motherfucker!” said a man who had suddenly appeared beside the two of them. He put a gun, cocked sideways, to the Scorpion’s cheek.

  The Scorpion stopped and moved his eyes analytically in the direction of the gun. The man standing beside him was dressed in a security uniform, but he recognized him easily enough. It was Gil “Black Fingers” Blackman. The chickens always came home to roost at the oddest of times!

  “And what do you want?” the Scorpion asked coolly, his laughter dying.

  The gun barrel nudged the Scorpion’s cheek behind the veil. “What everyone wants. I want your fucking skin on my wall for taking out my boys, freakshow.”

  “You’ll have to get in line for that, chump.”

  In that moment, Morningstar flew at the two of them, roaring. The Scorpion moved aside. Blackman squeezed off two direct rounds. Morningstar sucked up the slugs like a sponge, barely reacting. The two wound up on the ground with Blackman on top at first, then Morningstar as he delivered a number of stunning blows that reduced Blackman’s ugly face to ugly face soup.

  “You kill me, and I’ll have my boys blow this whole stadium, kid!” Blackman gargled. He grinned brokenly through his facemask of blood. “The whole place is wired with plastic explosives. That’s ten thousand lives on your head, kid!”

  The Scorpion struggled to sit up with all his broken parts, wondering what Morningstar planned to do.

  Morningstar drifted back, eyeing the man as if he only half-believed him. He was used to petty thieves, not terrorists. Blackman was the big time. The mobbie climbed unsteadily to his feet, weaving but not down for the count. He was a big man, a former dockworker and heavyweight boxer who’d never lost a match even after he’d turned to organized crime. He smiled at Morningstar and mumbled out of his crooked, mushed-up mouth, “Now you’re gonna do exactly what I tell you, big boy.” He turned and pointed one bloody finger at the Scorpion. “Kill that freak of nature, or everyone here dies.”

  Morningstar thought about that but only for a moment. He turned, eyed the Scorpion, and lunged.

  The Scorpion shot Mark through the brain. It cleaved off the part of his head that was hooded and bathed Blackman in bloody gray matter. Blackman hopped back as the body fell toward him like a downed tree. Blackman looked at the Scorpion and blinked as if confused.

  The Scorpion shifted the gun to track Blackman. His hip was mending. His arm was good enough to put another bullet in another brain.

  “You shoot me, I’ll have my gunmen take you down, freak,” Blackman said, raising his hand to point erratically at the bleachers high above them both. “I have snipers. I have…”

  “I hate it when a guy can’t keep his bluff straight,” the Scorpion said. He shot Blackman through the head too.

  #

  Later, at home, I sat listening to the newscaster on TV as he recapped the events at Steeltown Stadium, Suzaku sewing up the sizeable fifteen-inch tear down my back. With the game going strong and the Steelers in the lead, no one had noticed what was going on until halftime. That was America for you. After that, it was all a muddled confusion though police investigators and medical examiners were struggling to piece the story together.

  “They can’t identify the boy, Mark,” I told her. “If that was even his real name. No one knows who he was or where he came from. There’s no record of him anywhere.”

  Suzaku started rubbing her special creams into my stitches and various contusions. It was pretty obvious I wouldn’t be playing the green with Farnon this coming Saturday. More’s the pity.

  “He was, in fact, a mutant, but they can’t identify him,” I further explained “He wasn’t on Farnon’s payroll. He was probably one of them. One of the Reich. They always are.”

  Suzaku’s painted fingertips stroked my shoulders and down over my chest, soft and persistent.

  “It’s always the past that gets you, Suzaku. Always.”

  She leaned down to kiss my shoulder softly.

  “I did the right thing, didn’t I? Killing Mark…or whoever he was?”

  Suzaku’s hair brushed my cheek like a perfumed cloud, and her voice purred in my ear. “K-san, let’s go to bed.”

  Illusion

  Karina Fabian

  Sleep was good, was peace, was a blessed oblivion. Dreams, when they came, were merely dreams, phantoms Deryl could sometimes control. Even the dreamtime training sessions of the Master, which sometimes left him with visible bruises upon awaking, were at least linear and thus understandable. And when the Master finished his lesson of the night and Deryl faded out of dreams and REM sleep, his mind could finally rest. Sleep was healing.

  Deryl woke into nightmare.

  Even before he opened his eyes, the assault began: discontent about leaving a warm bed to put on the chilly school uniforms, dread at another day of facing bullies and disapproving teachers, eagerness to hang out with friends, fear of a math test, excitement about the math test, eagerness for the week to end and see parents, sisters, girlfriends. So many thoughts.

  None of them his.

  Think about the sheets: soft and warm, the blanket nice and heavy over me, like a cocoon. Smell the laundry soap. Laundry soap, not deodorant. Cotton sheets, not polyester blend pants. Dark and dry, not echo-y and steamy. My name is Deryl Stephens…

  He pulled the covers over his head and fought against the dizzying onslaught of thoughts as his dorm mates prepared for the day. This early upon awakening, the chaos of their minds brought nausea more than pain. He’d learned that if he breathed slowly though his mouth and concentrated on physical sensations and his mantra, he could usually stay calm and fake sleep until the room cleared. It didn’t matter if he missed breakfast; he’d be too sick to eat anyway. Later, when his waking mind had better control, the queasiness would leave, and the headaches would start. Enough medicine and he could bear those. Besides, if the Master had taught him one thing, it was how to handle pain.

  There’d be less pain if I d
id what the Master wanted.

  He felt himself scowling even though no one could see him. If disobedience meant pain, he’d deal with the pain. He was not going to attack other humans, not even in his dreams. He’d already learned how easy it was to lash out at others, how much he could enjoy it if he let the Master lead him down that path. He couldn’t always keep track of who he was anymore, but he knew one thing: He was not a killer.

  The distant hum of thoughts told him the room had emptied. At last, he could get up, shower, and steel himself for the day.

  As the cool water struck his back and plastered his hair to his scalp, he began the mantra: “My name is Deryl Stephens. I’m thirteen years, four months, and seven days old. I’m in eighth grade. My favorite subject is science. I like meteorology best. My worse subject is Social Studies. I like raspberries and hate chocolate…” Every detail he could think of that was his, he muttered aloud, forcing himself to hear it above the wants, needs, pains, and thoughts of the population of the George Weinmann School for Boys. Sometimes, it was enough.

  Once showered and dressed, he reached under his bed and pulled out the bottle of Motrin hidden there and poured eight into his hand. The bottle rattled. He’d have to buy or steal more soon. He took two in anticipation of the headache to come and stuffed the rest into his pocket. He shoved the bottle back into the mattress, through the tear, securing it among the filling, then pulled out a small, framed photo. He ran his fingers over his mother’s hair, traced her smile. Her eyes looked wrong in the photo; they always did. No camera could capture the life that shone from them or the hidden knowledge that darkened their depths. She would have understood what he was going through; she would have helped him. But it was too late. He couldn’t talk to her now, and he couldn’t imagine what she would say. He shoved the photo back next to the painkillers then went to wash the tears off his face.

  He checked his schedule and his homework, making sure they held his name and not someone else’s. He recited his mantra along with his first hour classroom number. Finally, with a deep breath, like a swimmer about to jump the high dive, he pulled open the door and forced his feet to take him to his—and not someone else’s—first class.

  Social Studies went okay—a film about the civil rights movement kept everyone focused enough that he could focus too. He even managed to take coherent notes.

  Algebra proved harder. Even when they were supposed to be paying attention to the problem on the board, some of his classmates were still trying to catch up in the book; others were going on to the next problems; some were just baffled. A couple did homework from another class. Numbers and operations swirled in his mind along with boredom, exultation, and confusion. He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands to try to cut down the visual stimulus until he could straighten out the rest.

  Please. Make it stop!

  “Mr. Stephens, please pay attention.”

  Make it stop. Make it stop! Makeitstopmakeitstop—

  “Mr. Stephens, I said would you please come to the board and solve this problem?”

  I am Deryl Stephens!

  Deryl jerked his head up and looked at the board. I am Deryl Stephens. I’m thirteen years, four months, and seven days old. I’m in eighth grade, and I am in algebra. I need to find the area under a curve.

  “You can do this, can’t you?” Mr. Lane’s voice was laced with sarcasm, and his pessimism thrust at Deryl like one of the daggers the Master used in training. Deryl wrapped his arms around his ribs against the phantom pain, but the teacher took that for obstinacy. He opened his mouth and said something.

  Deryl didn’t hear it. Around him, the room had focused on him. Loser Deryl. What was his problem anyway? How’d this retard get into algebra in the first place? Kid’s just weird. Wonder if he’ll do something crazy again?

  Deryl sprung out of his seat, desperate for a reason to put even the slightest distance between himself and his classmates. He went to the board, but the numbers refused to resolve themselves. Chalk up to the blackboard, he hesitated. People thought he was stupid. He thought he was stupid. I am not stupid!

  He heard his mother, clapping her hands over some school assignment he’d brought home and hugging him, telling him he was brilliant. He heard the Master scolding: Of course, you are not stupid. Now, show them. Use your abilities intelligently!

  Mr. Lane couched his voice in boredom to mask his growing irritation. “Anytime now, Mr. Stephens. It’s really a very simple problem.”

  And suddenly, it was, and Deryl’s hand flew across the board, etching out the process and the answer without his having to think. Which, of course, was the problem.

  When he stepped away from the board and his focus left the problem, he felt confusion from the class, mixed with amusement, and a combination of suspicion and surprise from Mr. Lane.

  “Well,” Mr. Lane started then cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, that is indeed the correct answer—if we were in calculus and not algebra.”

  He looked at the board—with his own eyes as well as the class’—and realized he had no idea what he’d written. It had happened again. He’d mistaken the teacher’s thoughts for his own. He wanted to cry, but the kids started laughing—hard, cruel laughter—and helpless, he laughed with them.

  He was late to gym because he had to wait until everyone cleared out of the locker room so that he could stare at his reflection in the mirror and recite his mantra. “I am Deryl Stephens. I’m thirteen years, four months, and seven days old. I’m in eighth grade. I am learning algebra. I do not know calculus…”

  Gym class should have been easy. They were training for the fitness test: sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups—so many ups!—then a run and the rope climb. Simple, physical, mechanical; even when minds wandered, they never strayed past the pounding of feet and the counting. Counting was hard, but even if he missed a number, they’d chalk it up to everyone else counting at once.

  Then Gordo Villanova fell from the ropes and cracked the back of his head, and Deryl felt the blow as if it were his own. Only the training from the Master—or rather, learning to think past the pain of the training—kept him from crying out. He only paused for just a moment to grimace, easily mistaken for effort on his forty-second sit-up. His partner yelled encouragement, and he absorbed his excitement and plunged on. Afterward, he excused himself to go to the restroom, and when no one was looking, he swallowed down four more pills.

  One would have thought the hallways would be the worst of all, but with so many minds thinking in so many directions, Deryl’s went into sensory overload. Sometimes, he’d actually shut down and have to lean against the wall and force himself to breathe until he could see with his own eyes again; but today, the mellow mood of the students and the painkillers had caused everything to fade to a kind of roar of psychic white noise, and he rode it along, reciting in his mind his name and the room number of his next class.

  A thought pierced through the rumble. Barry Whitewater, anticipating the mayhem when he bumped Andy Bernstein into one of the meanest seniors in school. A memory—his own memory—of being on the wrong end of that trick flooded his mind along with the words of the Master: You have an advantage none of your peers have. Use it!

  Barry stumbled and pummeled into the jock instead. The senior snarled an obscenity and grabbed Barry by the collar and shoved him against the locker. As the others, including Barry’s intended victim, crowded around, shouting jeers or encouragements, Deryl hurried away before he got caught up in the thrill of the violence. Still, it was the best part of his day.

  In the middle of French class, he was called to the school counselor.

  Again, he had a few minutes of relative solitude, and he made his way down the great staircase and through the hall slowly, letting the clacking of his shoes on the marble floors sooth him. He recited his mantra until every word came out in English. He paused at the water fountain to take the last of his Motrin. He heard (or rather, Gordo heard) the nurse scoldi
ng him that if it really did hurt that bad, he could take that and ibuprofen together. Maybe after he met with the counselor, he could go to the nurse and coax her into a couple. The thought cheered him enough that he even managed a sincere "Good afternoon," to the secretary and managed to fend off her irritation, imagining them as ants and brushing them off his arm before he knocked, then entered Counselor Phelps’ office.

  He found Dr. Peterson in the office too. That came as no surprise. Even if he hadn’t felt the psychiatrist’s presence, he’d expected it. They always talked to him as a team if only to corroborate that they heard the same bizarre things from their most trying student. He forced himself not to hunch defensively as he greeted them and took a seat between the psychiatrist and Mr. Phelps.

  Their judgment and their concern made him want to cringe. It would help if they didn’t believe themselves so sincere. If they really cared about him, they’d believe him, wouldn’t they?

  “So, Mr. Stephens, how are we feeling?”

  As he had many times before, Deryl answered Dr. Peterson’s question literally. "You woke up at two this morning with a toothache and are counting the minutes until you can get to the dentist because the ibuprofen you took isn’t cutting the pain. You could try some Motrin; that’s what the nurse is telling Gordo Villanova to do for his head. Mr. Phelps had been having a good day until Mrs. Whitewater called to complain about the treatment of her son. In the office, Mrs. Meriweather is upset because she and her husband got into an argument because she wanted to buy new towels, and now, she’s torn between crying to her sister, buying the towels anyway, or getting something even more expensive for herself. And I have my usual headache because I can feel your tooth, and your frustration, and her anger, and where Gordo hit the back of his head. He’s not faking like the nurse thinks. It really hurts."

  Believe, he begged. Please, this time, believe that I really am psychic. Help me!