Kharmic Rebound

by Yeager, Aaron

  Gerald realized what he was doing and stopped himself. They were only sitting there on the hospital bed, but he had to catch his breath none the less.

  Pain got passed around. It was one of the basic tenants of Soeckism. A driver cuts you off in traffic, so you yell at the bank teller, who chews out the janitor, who criticizes the store clerk, who short-changes the paperboy. In that way, bad feelings traveled around, one person hurting another in an endless cycle, circling the globe until finally it reached that one person willing to hang onto it and hold it until it vanished, without ever passing it along.

  That was the concept of forgiveness. A short-circuit to the network of suffering that people created amongst themselves. A pressure valve for the collective hearts of everyone, else all those little evils build up and choke the life and joy out of everybody.

  Gerald was tired of living in a world where he was powerless. Even an alien infant possessed more physical strength than he ever could. He tried not to admit it, he tried to hide it and tried to ignore it, but the truth is, it sickened him. But this, this was something that he could do. This was an instance where he could be strong. He could take this hurt upon himself, and refuse to pass it along. He could end this cycle of suffering by shouldering it, if he only had the courage to do so.

  “All right,” he whispered.

  “What?” Zurra asked, looking up, tears in her eyes.

  Gerald rubbed his face. This was so hard. He wanted to be angry, he wanted to hurt her back. His sense of justice betrayed him, became an opponent to him. How could he just let this go? To leave a crime unpunished. This was not justice, this was not morality, this was not balance, this was not...

  “I forgive you,” he said, his lip trembling.

  Zurra looked up at him. Her heart was so frail in that moment, if he said something even it the wrong tone, it would break her.

  “I forgive you,” he repeated, pulling her close to him. “Can you forgive me for hurting you?”

  Zurra burst out crying. “Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes, I can.”

  They held each other close and wept. It became like a cleansing rain that washed away the hurt. It did not happen all at once. It was slow and imperceptible, like the melting of ice. But over time that night, Gerald really did find it in his heart to forgive her, and she really did forgive him as well for the loss of her homeland and family. When it was all over, the first rays of the morning sun crept into their hospital room, and they found themselves renewed. They were weary from emotion, but not numb. The hurt was gone. It had been held onto without being passed to another, and they were enriched for it.

  Gerald wasn’t sure how long he slept. When he woke up, his head was all fuzzy from the pain medications. Zurra was in his arms, her head resting on his collarbone. Her beautiful pink lips were slightly parted as she slept, her soft breathing that of complete trust and security.

  Gerald looked at her lips. There was no thought, no decision. One moment he was looking at her, and the next they were kissing.

  She slowly stirred, gradually waking up as if in the most pleasant dream imaginable, returning his kiss with greater and greater fervor, until her arms were wrapped around his neck, his fingers running through her hair. The sensation was electric, spiritual, transcendent. In the pure and cleansed aftermath of their night spent together, their hearts knitted together anew. Not as childhood friends, nor as classmates, but as something much much more. A deep bond that required no label nor title. It existed without the acknowledgement of anyone else. A delicious secret to be swallowed and held inside, lighting them from within.

  The kiss was so innocent, so pure in its expression, that Gerald was scarcely aware he was doing it. No alarms went off in his head. No fear of rejection, no anxiety about romance or love or relationships nor any of the thousand barriers he had built up in his mind over the years to stop him from simply reaching out and showing affection in the most simple and natural way ever devised.

  His heart felt wrapped in hers, and hers in his, and he was unafraid.

  “Ahem,” a voice said.

  The two of them looked over and saw Ilrica standing there in the doorway. They both went bright red with embarrassment.

  “Ah, Ilrica,” Gerald stammered, sweat pouring down his face.

  Zurra sat up on Gerald’s lap and fussed with her hair, too flustered to do anything but make a kind of buzzing noise.

  “We were just... ah...”

  Ilrica’s emerald eyes twinkled mischievously. “You know, I don’t mind so much, but you do that in front of Trahzi, and she’ll burn both your planets to the ground.”

  “No, you see, it’s not what it looks like... ah, we were just... um... oh boy...”

  Ilrica snickered, enjoying the moment. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” she said, her tail whipping about playfully. “Just so long as I get a turn sometime soon.”

  With a wink, she went back out into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

  Zurra and Gerald looked at each other. They were so embarrassed they didn’t know what to do, so they started laughing. They leaned forward, their foreheads touching as they chuckled.

  “Well, you know what this means,” Gerald said. “Time to go to confessional.”

  “Totally worth it,” Zurra purred, stretching out long, like taffy.

  As he tried to sit up, she fell on him and gave him one last hug.

  “Ouch.”

  “Oh, sorry. “Was that your shoulder?”

  “Nope, that was my legs from when the skiv hit me.”

  “Sorry about that.” She shifted her weight.

  “Ahh!”

  “Oh, sorry!”

  Gerald groaned, clutching his side. “That is the nerve damage from when I was burnt.”

  He tried to sit up, but got dizzy and had to lean back down. “Ooh, and that’s from having part of my soul eaten.”

  Zurra’s eyes filled with sympathy. “Oh, you poor guy,” she said, placing her hand on him.

  “Ouch! That one, yes, that one was my broken shoulder.”

  “Boy, you are just all scarred up, aren’t you?”

  Zurra helped him to his feet. One glance by the side of his bed at the pile of broken Acta molds and he realized why the doctors had opted for a traditional plaster cast.

  Zurra changed her shape so she was wearing a nurse’s outfit and helped him into his robes. She had to cut the neckline to fit it over his cast, but she kind of preferred it this way, as the front was now open, showing off more of his tanned, muscular chest.

  As they went out in the hall in search of fresh pain meds, they saw Daan Nathers and a few security guards in the room next to theirs. Their curiosity got the better of them and they went in. On the bed were the remains of the assassin, her lavender eyes vapid and confused, her head covered in bandages.

  “...You’re sure about this?” Nathers asked the doctor. “She’s got a ton of built in weapons, and those head-plugs of hers are highly illegal. Can’t you remove them?”

  “Yes, sir, we could, but unless we de-coupled them from every living cell, they would just grow back. It would be an extremely expensive procedure, and without reimbursement from the military we simply cannot justify the costs involved.”

  Nathers looked over. “I see what you mean, with her like this, it hardly seems worth it.”

  The doctor left as Gerald and Zurra walked up and looked down angrily at the assassin lying on the bed.

  “How is she?” Gerald asked.

  Nathers jumped a little and scooted away from Gerald. “She’s completely fried. Her prosthetics will heal themselves, but her mind has been wiped. She’s little more than a vegetable at this point.”

  To make his point he poked her face as hard as he could. She barely responded at all. Her eyes darted around, as if she was hearing voices she couldn’t understand.

  “I still don’t get what happened to her,” Gerald said, looking down at this hateful weapon that had caused so much pain.

&nbs
p; Nathers turned and raised an eyebrow. “You did this to her.”

  “Me?”

  “The data from your retinal scan unfolded itself into a virus that ate her up from the inside.”

  Gerald furrowed his brow. “But... how?”

  Nathers shrugged. “We’re still not sure, but the same thing happened back at Exeter when you got your ID.”

  Gerald blinked. “You mean, that’s why all of the academy systems went down?”

  “Yep. You did that too.”

  Gerald’s face pinched with guilt. Zurra looked away, trying not to let on that she knew anything.

  “I don’t understand, how can my retinal scan code for a virus?”

  “Bad luck. The worst luck I’ve ever seen.”

  “I always thought I was cursed or something, but I guess I didn’t think it was real, or at least real enough to measure.”

  “Oh, it’s real, all right. Why do you think we followed you around? We knew that with luck as bad as yours, you’d stumble right onto the pirates we were hunting.”

  “You realize how insane that sounds?”

  Nathers breathed out through the holes in the back of his head. “That’s what the Senate sub-committee said, but it worked, didn’t it?”

  Gerald’s eyes went distant. “So, we were bait after all.”

  “That’s pretty cruel. To use him that way,” Ilrica commented from the doorway.

  “Says the criminal who made a genocidal doomsday weapon.”

  Ilrica pointed a finger. “Hey, that’s not fair!”

  “It’s not?”

  “Of course not! A criminal is someone who is convicted in a court of law. I was pardoned before I could be brought to trial.”

  “My mistake.”

  “It’s all right, just don’t let it happen again.”

  Nathers turned to leave.

  “Still,” Gerald said, still trying to process it all. “I guess I owe you thanks for saving me yesterday.”

  “Yeah, that was awful nice of you to save him,” Ilrica snorted, “seeing as how you left him to die during the battle with the pirate fleet.”

  Now Gerald was really confused. “Why did you save me, then?”

  Nathers turned back. “Believe me, I didn’t do it for you. You’ve ruined my career twice since I met you. You publicly humiliated me in front of the entire galaxy. No, I didn’t do it for you. The fact is, had you died yesterday then the peace delegations would quite likely have broken down completely. I may hate your guts, but not enough to risk more open war just to see you dead.”

  Gerald scratched his head. “Um... thanks?”

  As Nathers reached the door, Senator Immestria arrived with his guards, looking genuinely concerned. “Were you able to get any useful information out of her?”

  Nathers shook his head. “Her mind was wiped by the virus. She has no identity, no name, no family, no nothing. We don’t know where she came from or who sent her. As far as Central is concerned, she doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” Senator Immestria said, despite the fact that his eyes looked relieved.

  One glance at Zurra was all Gerald needed to realize that the senator had been involved in hiring the assassin. Watching him fuss over her like a concerned and innocent man chilled Gerald to the bone.

  “Surely you can at least trace her blood,” Ilrica suggested, her tail whipping about angrily.

  Nathers smacked her tail out of his face. “Her DNA has been rewritten to prevent just that. That’s the way the Assassins Guild works. They don’t recruit anyone; instead they kidnap kids, rewrite their genetic code, prosthetize them, and brainwash them to be weapons.”

  “That’s terrible,” Gerald said, looking over at the bed.

  “Don’t feel bad for her. Take away all of the prosthetics, and she’s just a head and torso. She’s not a person anymore, she’s just a weapon, and a broken one at that.”

  Nathers glanced back at her and shook his head. “Wow, that was one powerful brain dive she did to me. Even after restoring my memories, I still feel like I know her just by looking at her.”

  As Nathers walked away, Gerald could not help but look at the young woman in the bed in a different way.

  “It’s a shame really,” Ilrica said as she left. “That girl is the most talented hacker I’ve ever seen. She even sliced through my shadow tech. She was the first person to ever beat me. I’d have liked to have a rematch to settle the score.”

  The call button stopped working, so Zurra helped Gerald down the hall to the nurse’s station. They passed an open room where doctors and robots were hurriedly working over an elderly man, the doctor in charge shaking his head.

  That’s when they noticed Trahzi standing at the foot of the bed, claws extended, a flask in her hand.

  “Trahzi, what are you doing?!” Gerald hollered.

  * * *

  Back at the palace garden, Gerald carefully watered the lovingly tilled plot of soil Zurra had given him. A tender stalk had broken through the soil, and was rising up to unfurl its first leaves.

  Gerald couldn’t help but smile. The Stolleckian Lotus had taken root here.

  “I don’t really understand why you became so upset back at the hospital,” Trahzi said as she watched, shading the puppy with her hand.

  Gerald tossed a snack to Cadbury, who ran after it, colliding with a hedgerow and getting stuck in it.

  “Well, try to see it from our perspective,” Gerald said, pulling Cadbury free. “It’s a hospital, but you were treating it like a buffet.”

  “What else should I treat it like?”

  Ilrica laughed from where she sat on the underside of a tree branch. “You know what? I take back what I said before. Trahzi does have a sense of humor.”

  Trahzi ignored her. “The old man would have died in a couple of minutes anyway. Why should I let his soul go to waste? You others are throwing away perfectly ripe souls. It’s so wasteful.”

  “The problem is, you were about to kill him,” Gerald said, patting Cadbury on the head. She squawked awkwardly.

  “I can’t harvest a soul once it has left its body. Besides, you made no protests about all the pirates I killed.”

  “The man in the hospital was innocent of any crime worthy of death; the pirates were not.” Gerald set Cadbury down and she ran off, scratching around for bugs.

  “This is an interesting philosophical question,” Zurra said from where she sat on a carved stone bench. “Is it morally wrong for Trahzi to kill an innocent person, even if it would only be a couple minutes before the end of their natural life?”

  Gerald scratched his elbow. “On principle, I would say yes.”

  Zurra leaned forward, fascinated. “Okay, so what about if it is only a couple of seconds before death? Would it be acceptable then?”

  “Ooh, that’s a harder one,” Ilrica said.

  Gerald thought. “Given how much it hurts, and believe me, I know, I would still say yes.”

  “So, what? She’s just supposed to starve?”

  Trahzi kissed the puppy. “But I wouldn’t starve, I’d go into a thirst rage.”

  “Right, then she’d lose control and kill someone at random. Someone who most certainly wasn’t at the point of death. Don’t you think that would be worse than killing someone who was already about to die?”

  Gerald nodded. “Yes, it would, but it would still be killing an innocent person.”

  “As I recall, you have objected in the past even when I ate guilty people. Your morals still confuse me.”

  Ilrica dropped down and scooped up a handful of grass. “What if she just ate weeds instead?”

  Zurra shook her head. “You forget how much plant life is required. Would you have her deforest the galaxy one planet at a time? Remember, their last galaxy ran out of plant and animal life sating their hunger. Then, everyone else would starve.”

  Ilrica sprinkled the handful of grass onto Trahzi’s head. Her fire flashed for a second, reducing the blades to ash.r />
  Gerald ran his fingers though his brown hair. He was genuinely disturbed. “Boy, this is a problem.”

  Ilrica dusted off her hands. “Of course it’s a problem. Gerald, you’re a monk, dedicated to succoring the sick and the needy, and you are dating a girl who eats souls and a girl who eats people. What, you didn’t think that would eventually create a conflict of interest?”

  “Who said we are dating?”

  “WE DO,” the girls said in unison.

  Gerald went back to thinking. “I hate to say it, but this genuinely upsets me. I’m a spiritual person. I like to have right and wrong defined, quantified, labeled catalogued and shelved. But this... I’m just not sure what is best in this situation.”

  Zurra sat up straight like she had been pinched and raised her hands as if she were in class. “Ooh, I know, I know! You could minimize the damage. Have Trahzi eat the soul and Ilrica eat the body of the same person. That way they’re only killing one person instead of two.”

  Ilrica and Trahzi glared at each other.

  “Yuck,” Ilrica said, sticking her long tongue out.

  “I’m not sharing with her!” Trahzi said.

  Gerald wiped the sweat off of his brow. He flexed against his cast uncomfortably. His shoulder was beginning to hurt again. “We better get back to the hospital. I have another round of medical nanites scheduled.”

  Flames rose up all around them, and when they vanished, the four of them were back in the city. Nearby pedestrians were startled by their sudden appearance.

  “Whoa, thanks Trahzi,” Gerald said, looking around.

  “I hate waiting.”

  “Ilrica looked around. “So, why did you bring us here instead of directly to the hospital?”

  Trahzi blushed slightly. “Because I wanted to hold his hand while we walked.”

  Gerald smiled. She had always been physically attractive, but the way she held the puppy, the tenderness she had learned. She now possessed a gentle femininity that was truly strikingly beautiful. The way she was blushing right now was irresistible. Without thinking, he took her hand. It was surprisingly cool to the touch.