by Alan Janney
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. I couldn’t focus. It was like trying to concentrate during a tornado, I was so disoriented. “Wow, this is…this is incredible. How many people like me… like us…are there?”
“Not many.”
“Where are they?”
“We’re scattered, here and there. We don’t all live in a commune, or something like that,” he chuckled around the extinguished stub in his mouth. “I’m the guy that greets the new recruits. And I have four pieces of information for you.”
“Okay.”
“Four things you need to know,” he said again.
“Got it. Four.”
“It’s a good news, bad news thing,” he said while fishing another cigarette from his pocket. “Two good, two bad.”
“Give me the bad news first,” I suggested.
“The first thing you need to know is good,” he said. He lit the cigarette and spewed fresh blue smoke. “You’re not an alien.”
“Oh…okay. Whew? I guess?”
“You haven’t been bitten by a radioactive spider. Nothing stupid like that. The changes you’re undergoing are easily explained. You don’t have super powers. Nothing so glamorous. Simply put, you’re sick.”
“I’m sick?”
“You have a virus, to be exact. Same as me. Same as the rest of us with this unique condition. We call ourselves the Infected.”
“The Infected? You said it was a virus, not an infection,” I pointed out.
“I didn’t pick the name. But you’re right, that’s always bothered me too.”
“And you’ve determined I have this virus?”
“Unless I miss my guess.” He pulled the black satchel to him and from it he retrieved a zippered portfolio. He tossed the portfolio onto the helipad and indicated I should open it. Inside were dozens of x-rays and MRIs. The pictures had circles drawn on them, but even with those clues I still didn’t know what I was looking at. “We don’t know much about the virus. Minimal research has been done. We Infected don’t want to be lab rats, so we’re a pretty secretive crew.”
“What’s this circled between the lungs?” I held up a xray.
“The thymus. It usually atrophies during adolescence. However the virus stimulates the thymus and keeps it active for the rest of your life, which causes growth abnormalities. The x-ray in your right hand is mine. The x-ray in your left is a normal adult’s. See the difference? Same with the MRI pictures. The virus also stimulates the adrenal glands, the testes, the frontal cortex, and lots of other crap I can’t remember. The virus is stimulated by fight or flight episodes. These hyper-aggressive states accelerate the virus’s symptoms.”
“All these medical documents mean nothing to me. What exactly does the virus do to your body?”
“I don’t know why I even keep those records,” he sighed. “No one understands them.”
“Sorry.”
“What does the virus do? It causes massive physiological changes. Those of us that survive will have a greater volume of adrenaline in our veins, more serotonin, more epinephrin, better circulation, faster mental processes, a higher quantity and quality of quick twitch muscle, greater bone density, better immune system, rapid healing abilities, significantly heightened hand-eye coordination, hyper-accurate senses, great strength…that kind of thing.”
“Whoa…”
“Now you see why it’s a secret. Pharmaceutical companies would spend millions of dollars tracking us down and slicing us up to bottle the virus. Governments would try to weaponize us. Our lives would be over.”
“Aren’t you stronger and faster than pharmaceutical companies?”
“Sure, kid. To be honest, we could topple a small government. But a small group of us against the might of the American military? Get real.”
“So you can’t fly? Or shoot laser beams out of your eyes?”
“Don’t be an ass, kid,” he growled. “You have a disease that causes your body to overproduce parts of itself. You’re not Superman. It’s your body, just sped up and strengthened.”
“Wait…you just said…those of us that survive. What does that mean?”
“That’s the second thing you need to know,” he said with a grim expression. “The virus is powerful. The body isn’t made to endure the changes it’s manufacturing. It almost always over-loads your system and your brain just…turns off.”
“Turns off?”
“That’s the nasty part of the virus. It’s almost always fatal. I’m sorry.”
“Fatal,” I repeated. I felt like someone had poured ice water down my back.
“Those headaches and stomachaches you’ve been having? That’s the virus. And they’re going to get worse. That’s why there aren’t many Infected alive. The virus kills everyone who gets it, basically.”
I didn’t say anything. I remembered standing outside Katie’s apartment and dry heaving in her shrubs because of stress and headaches. He gave me time to digest the news. How much madness could the brain absorb? I had to be near the limit.
Fatal. I could be dead before my senior year. Before summer. No more Dad. No more…Katie. I wanted to laugh it off, but too many things he said rang true. Fatal. Fatal. The concept was still abstract, like it didn’t affect me. Fatal. I couldn’t digest it. I numbly walked to the edge of the helipad. The US Bank Tower was tall. I didn’t know exactly how tall, but it was over 70 floors. The enormous lights below us cast our conversation into surreal shades of neon. I stared over the city, a blanket of glowing crystals sweeping to the ocean. Behind me the lights stretched to the Angeles National Forest mountains.
“I’ve done the math. One kid in ten million gets infected. Ninety percent of those kids die when they start puberty. Nine-ty per-cent. The virus is too strong,” he said and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “We call it the Hyper Human Virus, for lack of a better term. You have to be a freak to survive it.”
“And if you do, you’re superhuman,” I mused.
“Those that survive puberty, which apparently you did, almost always die at the end of adolescence. For you, mate, that’s right now. Something to do with the development of the frontal cortex. I’m not a doctor and so I’m probably remembering the wrong terms.”
“So…you’re saying that statistically my brain is just going to turn off soon.”
“Or you’ll go insane. That happens a lot too.”
I barked a laugh and said, “Speaking of insanity…this is the most over-the-top, ludicrous, outrageous, ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Can you prove any of this crap?”
“Don’t believe me?”
“Your story would be more believable if you had evidence. Other than your incomprehensible medical records.”
“That’s what they all say,” he sighed, and he reached into his pocket. “Ye of little faith.” He pulled out a handful of quarters and tossed one to me. “Bend it.”
“Bend it?”
“Bend it,” he repeated.
“It’s a quarter. It’s hard. I can’t. You bend it,” I said and threw it back. He caught it and immediately folded the coin over on itself, pressing it neatly in half. Then he did it again, using only two fingers, and he tossed it back. The bent edges were warm. Impossible! “Fine. You’re strong. I’m impressed with your strength. Wow. Yay for you. That all you got?”
“Watch,” he said and he started juggling the quarters. He had at least ten. His hands were a blur, although he appeared to exert no effort. “So, this virus. It affects different bodies in different ways. I’m strong, but not as strong as some. I’m quick, but not as quick as the others. But I do have heightened hand-eye coordination. And you’ve forgotten one thing. How’d you get up here?”
“I don’t know. I had a bag over my face,” I shot at him.
“I carried you,” he said. “And we didn’t use an elevator. Or the stairs. Explain that.” He caught all the quarters in one hand and began flexing his fist. “We went up the old fashioned way. We climbed.” He squeezed and his arm trembled and then he t
hrew me a small ball of hot metal. The quarters had all been fused into one solid piece.
“That’s incredible,” I breathed.
“I have the disease, I survived, and now I can do that,” he said quietly. “You might be able to survive too. There’s a trick to it. That’s the third thing you need to know.”
“Okay,” I said, numb, staring into the ball of quarters. “Tell me the trick.”
“Starting to believe me?” he grinned without humor, another cigarette now dead in his teeth.
“I don’t know. Probably,” I said and rubbed my eyes. “Maybe.”
“If you can get through the crucial late adolescence period, then your mind and body will be almost in-destructible. The changes hit me hard close to my nineteenth birthday. The pain came in waves for a few months, and then it stopped. Everyone says the same.”
“The pain?”
“Growing pains from hell,” he nodded.
“Tell me how you did it.”
“Like I said, there’s a trick. At lease we’re pretty sure. It’s hard to do, and even if you can manage it you still might die,” he shook his head as if re-experiencing the ordeal.
“Tell me.”
“Here it is, kid. Number three. The good news. The hope. During this whole thing, your brain will be vulnerable. Your brain is crucial. The only shot you got is relaxing. Calm down. Sleep. Find peace and rest and avoid all stress. Your brain and your psyche are very fragile and tender, and any stressors you put on either will snap them. Imagine your brain as a partially torn tendon. If you try to exert the tendon it’ll simply snap. The tendon must be fully healed before you put any significant weight on it,” he said, pointing at the patella tendon in my knee. “Just like your brain. You will snap it in half by exerting it before it’s healed.”
“That sounds easy,” I chuckled in relief. “I just won’t put any weight on it. On my brain and psyche, I mean.”
“Ain’t so simple, kid. Two problems. One, the pain you’ll be in will not allow you to relax. Two, your body will be pumping so much adrenaline through your veins that you won’t be able to sit still. Your systems will be super charged. You’ll explode if you try to sit still. In other words, to survive you must be relaxed and at peace, but the virus won’t allow that. It hurts and irresistibly demands action. You crave action. Thus, your Outlaw gig.”
“My Outlaw gig?”
“You think it’s mere coincidence that you started this nationally celebrated charade at the precise time the symptoms started? No way, kid. It’s no accident. The virus was driving you into the night, to the top of towers. We Infected die young like supernovas. We burn up fast and bright.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I admitted. It all fit. And at the same time, this was madness.
“Also, stay away from alcohol or anything else that messes with your brain.”
“So…this trick is good news. Which means there is more bad news,” I remembered.
“Right. The fourth thing you need to know.”
“Great,” I said dryly. “Can’t wait to hear how this gets worse.”
He lazily but efficiently withdrew a revolver from the holster strapped to his thigh. He pointed it at my forehead and thumbed back the hammer, and the weapon made a heavy clicking sound. My breath caught.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said evenly. “But I came here tonight prepared to. My mission was to determine if you were insane yet. If you were…bang. I’d put one in your temple and be on my way.”
“What makes you think I’d let you shoot me?” I asked with much more stability and bravado in my voice than I felt. I wanted to squirm away from the GIGANTIC barrel of his gun.
“Kid,” he laughed around the extinguished stub in his mouth. “I know you’re fast. But you’re still getting used to your own body. Me? I’ve had mine a long time. But I can tell you’re not crazy. You are lucid and logical and rational. So I’m here to educate you. Take a good look at this gun. I want you to realize how serious I am. How serious the Infected are.”
“Okay.”
“The fourth thing is this. If you start to go insane, you will be executed.”
“Executing the new recruits doesn’t seem very collegial,” I growled.
He lowered the hammer and holstered his revolver. I enjoyed a deep sigh of relief. “My job isn’t to be friendly. My job is to evaluate the newbies and then either educate or execute them.”
“Why would I go insane?”
“The virus is causing powerful changes in your body. Usually you’ll simply fall dead, likely from an aneurysm. OBE. Overcome by events. That’s where your headaches are coming from,” he said, pointing at me with his dead cigarette. “The virus is too strong. Bam, dead. Easy. No messy cleanup. However sometimes the result is that the brain breaks but doesn’t stop. Thus, insanity. If that occurs, we can’t wait for the aneurysm. We finish them off before the virus gets around to it.”
“Why do you finish them off?”
“Imagine the nightmare scenario if we didn’t. If you’re sick and some of your symptoms are insanity and freakish strength, then you’re going to hurt a lot of people. And draw attention.”
“So you enforce the secrecy,” I nodded. That made sense. Morbid sense.
“Right.”
“How do you find the new recruits?”
He chuckled without humor and said, “A person developing superhuman abilities while simultaneously losing their mind isn’t hard to find. If you know what to look for,” he said pointedly.
“Like the Outlaw,” I realized.
“Like the Outlaw,” he agreed. “At least you’ve been smart enough to cover up your insanity with a mask.”
“How many times a year do you do this?”
“Christ, you ask a lot of questions. A couple times a year, on average” he said.
“How many Infected are there total?”
“If you survive, you’ll bring the total number up to ten.”
“That’s it?” I cried.
“That I know of. Might be others in hiding.”
“And you’re the boss?”
He frowned and shook his head. “We don’t have a boss. I just meet the new recruits. That’s my job. Now you’re someone else’s problem.”
“Unless I go insane,” I reminded him. “Then you’ll come kill me.”
“No. Not me. I just handle the initial encounter. But I will tell you this, kid. We are a secretive group. We don’t like attention. And you dressing up like a superhero and jumping around on roof tops? That draws attention.”
“So?”
“Like you said, we enforce the secrecy.” He made a gun with his thumb and finger. “Pow.” He dropped his thumb and shot me.
“You’re threatening to kill me if I keep acting like the Outlaw,” I realized with a snarl.
“Not me kid,” he spread his arms out wide, palms up, grinning. “Not my job.”
“Whose job is it?”
“It’s the Shooter’s job,” he said.
“The Shooter?!”
“Yeah, I know. Not a great name. But, it fits this particular individual.”
“Ridiculous,” I snapped. “You’re here to tell me that I’m going to die in a few months. And if I keep attracting attention, someone named the Shooter will come shoot me even sooner than that?”
“Not will come. Has come. The Shooter’s plane landed last week.”
“This is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard,” I almost yelled. “So what’s your name? The Revolver? The Killer of Crazy Infected Newbies?”
“My name’s Carter.”
“Your name sucks,” I grumbled.
“Sorry, mate.”
“So I’ve only got a few months left,” I sighed, trying to keep my anger in check and keep the facts straight. “Unless I find a way to relax. And quit gallivanting around as the Outlaw.”
“Bingo. No more televised roof jumping.”
“What about you? Can you jump over buildings from th
e street?” I asked. “I jumped up two stories a few months ago.”
“I got you up here, didn’t I? But I’m getting old now. My knees aren’t the same as they were. I could probably throw you over a building.”
“How old are you? Now that you’ve survived, how long will you live?” I asked.
“I plan on being here a while. And let’s just say I’m older than your great grandparents. I’m aging slowly.”
“How can I climb walls?”
“Simple. You’re stronger, including your fingers. Inhumanly nimble with unreal dexterity. Your finger tips and feet can take advantage of ledges you can barely see. It’s not magic.”
His phone rang. I could see it light up in one of his pants pockets. He unzipped the pocket and retrieved the vibrating device.
“Yes? …things are fine. …I think the costume is stupid too. …Right.” He hung up.
“The Shooter?”
“Yep,” he said and he flicked the dead butt over the edge of the helipad into the Los Angeles night.
“Is the Shooter watching us?”
“Nah. You’re nothing I can’t handle. Aren’t you hot in that thing?” he asked, indicating my mask.
“It’s permeable,” I replied in a fog. “So what happens now?”
“You die.”
“Listen to me,” I snapped, pointing my finger at him. “I’m not going anywhere. Understand? I’m not afraid. Not of you, not of your Shooter, and not of your virus. I’ll do what I need to do to beat it, if it’s even legit. I’ve overcome bigger obstacles than this. I’m going to live a long time. Get used to it,” I said from some unknown reservoir of confidence and surety.
“I like your arrogance, kid. Survive and we’ll talk further. I’ll stick around, and check on you now and then. Sometimes I just go home but…you’re an interesting case. I’m curious to see how this plays out. I want to see if the virus or the Shooter kills you first.” He stood up and shrugged into his backpack. “Before I go…” he said and he pulled out a newspaper. It was a copy of a football profile written back in the fall. A portion of the article was written about me. The rest was written about Tank. “This is you, isn’t it?” he asked, pointing at the picture of me. “I thought you might be Tank, but despite the mask I can tell that you’re not him. You’re Chase Jackson.”
