Animalis

by John Peter Jones

  Gold Teeth met the two in the middle, facing Grimshaw with a dominating stare. His eyes slowly moved over her body.

  Jax could feel the reaction in her body. Her stomach tensed and her breathing became restricted.

  Jax clenched her fist. He wanted to punch the man so bad.

  The ref whistled, a bell rang, and the fight began.

  “Oosh!” Gold Teeth shot forward, punching a quick jab at Grimshaw’s head.

  Jax hopped backward, keeping distance between them. Jax suddenly felt struck with fear: How could he force himself to put Grimshaw in danger? Every blow that he delivered, she was sure to get hit in return.

  Gold Teeth leaped forward again, pumping his fists out with hisses of breath: “Oosh, oosh!”

  Jax backed away, letting the swings hit harmlessly against her boxing gloves. But he could feel her pushing his legs forward, stepping him toward the fighter.

  Boom-boom. Two jabs connected with Grimshaw’s gloves and forearms.

  Jax could feel her body tense from the impacts. He couldn’t feel the pain of it, but he could imagine it. All he could think about was that each strike he let through was his fault.

  “Eess, eess!” Jax pumped Grimshaw’s fists forward, forcing out two strained hisses from her mouth.

  Gold Teeth blocked and Jax hopped her body out of range.

  “I can take a hit, Jax!” Grimshaw said between breaths. “Go after this guy.”

  She started to push her body toward the fight again.

  Gold Teeth was coming at her for more. Jax blocked another blow and hopped to the right, jabbing twice.

  “Eess, eess!”

  Her arms were knocked to the side with a quick block, exposing her face and chest to attack.

  “Oosh!”

  Grimshaw’s head snapped backward. Jax could feel her muscles go limp for a moment. She was off balance and disoriented from the hit. Stop it! he wanted to shout at her. Let me do the fighting! Jax forced her arms back in front of her face and stepped back.

  The punches kept coming. “Oo-oosh! Oo-oosh! Oosh, oosh!”

  Jax had to step back. The jabs shook her arms, slamming her own gloves into her face over and over. Her body was tense. He had to fight past her urge to turn away from the punches and curl up.

  Jas had no panic-stricken, adrenaline-fueled response happening in his mind. He was separate and safe from the fight. He could see what was happening in real time, and respond with a clear and calculated attack.

  Jax dug Grimshaw’s right leg into the springy surface of the ring and shot her fist through the oncoming punches. The jab connected with Gold Teeth’s nose, sending his head backward with a streak of blood arching up through the air. Glowing particles of dust swirled in little tornado patterns where her glove had plowed through the air.

  Gold Teeth staggered backward with a confused look at Grimshaw. His most recent punch trailed out uselessly in front of him. The crowd was taken by surprise. The only sound coming from the warehouse seemed to be the powerful beat of Grimshaw’s heart.

  From the neck diode, Jax could feel Grimshaw pulling muscles that connected around to the front of her jaw. She had to be smiling.

  Gold Teeth wiped the blood leaking from his nose. When his glove came away from his face, his eyes were on fire. Jax could feel Grimshaw’s body retreat away from the man’s lurid face again.

  “That’s more like it,” he said.

  The bell rang, signaling the end of the first round.

  The two fighters retreated to their own corners. Grimshaw sat on a stool where one of the ACTS members waited to massage her muscles and force-feed her water.

  Around them, the crowd hummed with anticipation for the next round.

  Gold Teeth’s eyes didn’t stray from Grimshaw.

  “Jax, I don’t care what he does to me. I want to beat this creep,” Grimshaw whispered.

  Jax slowly nodded her head.

  The ref called the two fighters back to begin the second round. It would be two more minutes before the next break. Two minutes to block his punches and keep her safe.

  The bell rang and Gold Teeth came at her swiftly.

  Before Jax knew it, Grimshaw was pushing herself toward the oncoming fists. A fist swung at her from the side, and he ducked to the right. Another fist was coming at her from the other side. Jax knocked it away and pushed forward to get inside the attacks.

  Jax could hear the man’s hot breath now. Gold Teeth was holding her before pushing her out to where he could swing at her again. Then there was a sound of wet sandpaper sliding on her skin, and every one of Grimshaw’s muscles locked up. Jax lost control. He tried to move her away, but her body wasn’t responding.

  He licked her? Jax was dumbfounded. How could he let that happen to her? Never again. He could never let that happen again.

  Gold Teeth pushed her away and immediately Jax hooked him in the side of the face. The man’s hooks and jabs came at her again. This time, Jax was the one to drive Grimshaw’s body into the fray.

  Jax knocked a punch away and hooked him in the side of the head again.

  Another punch knocked Grimshaw’s glove back into her face. Jax fainted left and jabbed again. “Eess!”

  Pop-pow! Grimshaw was thrown backward with two powerful counterpunches.

  The second bell rang after another minute of fierce punches.

  When Grimshaw sat down on the stool, she gasped. “His breath. I can still smell his breath on me, Jax.”

  He could feel her chest constricting. Her whole body moved with the force of her breath. The movements triggered emotions inside Jax. He could feel her sense of powerlessness. He felt like he was nothing. He could feel defiance in her movements. She was trying to demand their opponent acknowledge her, but another emotion was telling him not to resist.

  All Jax could do was bring her gloved hands up to cover her face with.

  After a moment, she pushed her head up out of the gloves and said, “I’m okay. You’re doing great, Jax. Most of the time, I can’t tell what’s going on. But I love when my arms shoot out and I hit him in the face.”

  The third round began, and Jax dove into the fight.

  Jax didn’t hold back. He stayed close and jabbed and threw hooks over and over again. Grimshaw took more hits, but she landed more hits, too.

  Her breathing was strained. He could feel her muscles tingling from exertion.

  Halfway through the round, Jax got too close. Grimshaw’s head ducked under a wide hook and came face-to-face with the man’s eyes.

  She pulled control away from Jax, and this time took a step away from him. Her foot caught on the mat, and their body tumbled to the ground. In a flash, Gold Teeth was on top of her. Her muscles locked up, and Jax was powerless to pull her out of it.

  “What are you going to do now?” his chilling voice said in the confined space.

  “You can do it,” Jax called to her in his mind. “Fight it. You have to stop him. Don’t let him control you.”

  He could feel the two battling emotions inside her. Part of her was willing to give up her free will in the hopes that he would stop demanding control over her. The rest of her was screaming to be recognized as an equal.

  “You’re stronger than him … and he knows it,” Jax whispered in his mind. It was the last feeble way for him to communicate with her. “He thinks he can make you care about him, but you’re in complete control.”

  “Did you want me to—” Gold Teeth began saying, but he wasn’t able to finish.

  Jax felt a surge flow through her body and her fist shot up into his jaw. His teeth cracked together, and his head snapped back from the force of it.

  His eyes lost their focus as his body went limp and fell to the mat beside her.

  Jax had seen that look before. There was no consciousness in those eyes.

  KO.

  Knocked. Out.

  Gold Teeth was out of body and out of mind somewhere: in a dream land that could seem to last longer than a full night’s sl
eep. In reality, he would only be unconscious for a few seconds, but when his consciousness returned, he would have to figure out where he was and why one of his golden teeth was lying on the mat next to him.

  Most people, Jax knew, couldn’t catch up with reality within ten seconds of losing consciousness.

  The crowd held their breath to listen to the ref count.

  “One!”

  But Grimshaw apparently hadn’t seen the look as Gold Teeth had crumpled to the ground beside her. She was already scrambling to throw another punch into his face.

  “Two!”

  As his eyes began to open, her glove smacked him down into the floor again. His head bounced and he scrambled to his feet to get away from the attack.

  The referee stepped in and stopped her from hitting him again.

  The bell rang, signaling the end of third round. Gold Teeth looked around in confusion until one of his team members ushered him to the stool in the corner.

  “Did you see that?” Grimshaw asked when she got back to her stool. “He doesn’t have that look anymore.”

  Jax wished he could have been there. He wanted to be yelling, “YES!” and throwing her up on his shoulder.

  The crowd started up a chant: “I-er-land! I-er-land! I-er-land!”

  Jax took control of her arms and wrapped them around herself. It was strange, but he could feel his own arms around her, and he could tell that she could too. The muscles around her jaw pulled into a smile. Her head leaned to the side, pressing her cheek in a warm caress against the shoulder Jax was controlling.

  Across the ring, Gold Teeth looked at Grimshaw with wide eyes.

  Jax reached up and patted her on the back. The ACTS member behind her took it as a signal to massage that spot and began rubbing between her shoulders.

  When the ref called them back up to start the final round, Grimshaw was ready. Her body hopped back and forth, like a natural boxer, pushing Jax into the movement.

  Gold Teeth shook his head and strained to focus a glare at Grimshaw, but when the bell rang, he cowered away from her.

  Jax gave up control and felt her arms pop the creep in the face a few times before the end of the final round.

  People around the ring started up the chant again. They all knew who had won. When Jax raised her hands into the air when the fight was over, they burst into a cheer.

  It had worked. Somehow, they’d pulled it off. The mongoose and his family would be safe now, which Jax felt good about. But he was more focused on Grimshaw.

  She’d made it through the fight without getting hurt, and that made him feel even better.

  ——

  Two days later, Jax got another message from Hank:

  I was wrong. I need more time to understand how to operate it. Give me another week. ~Hank

  Jax kept busy, learning about the Animalis. But as the days passed, he realized that something was wrong with his leg, and it was getting worse and worse. He woke several times every night from the intense throbbing.

  It terrified him to see what it was becoming, but it also filled him with hope. Something was wrong with him, he knew. No … not wrong: he was … different. He wasn’t a normal human. But maybe he was better than human.

  The change in his leg forced him to stop using the robotic leg, and he and Hodge found some crutches to use instead. He kept it a secret as long as he could.

  ——

  The one person he could trust was Grimshaw. She knew both sides of him. She knew the army, that he had a commitment to serve and protect America, and humanity. And she had shown him the nature of the Animalis.

  And no matter how much he came to know about her, there was always more. They would talk with each other for hours into the night, until one of the human deacons that helped enforce rules within the living quarters would send them off to their own rooms. It seemed like Grimshaw could talk about anything. Sometimes Jax just sat and listened.

  Then on Christmas night, as Grimshaw was blushing from remembering when they had tried to smuggle chocolate into the kitchen and had hid for an hour in a storage room under the stairs, waiting for the cook to leave, Jax kissed her.

  She let herself be pulled into it. Jax felt the furnace inside his chest blazing. They sat, frozen, lips barely touching.

  Then Grimshaw pulled away. Her ears were almost as red as her hair. She held her eyes closed with a shy smile on her lips. But when she opened her eyes, her face became resigned. She exhaled a burdened breath, like she had decided to face something she had been dreading. Jax felt a knot forming in his stomach. Had he completely misjudged her feelings?

  “I should go.” She started to get up. Moxie leaped off of her lap and stretched on the floor. “I’m sorry. I really like you, Jax. But … we can’t be more than friends.”

  Jax stood up with her. “No, I’m sorry. I should have asked.” He hobbled to the door with his crutches and opened it for her. How had he thought he could kiss her? Could he make up for it somehow? “Can we still be friends?” he asked. He felt like a child saying it.

  She frowned, like the question had hurt her feelings. “Of course we can.” She turned her head away from him and pressed her body against him with a firm hug. Then she whispered, “What’s wrong with me? I can’t have feelings like this for you, Jax.”

  Of course, she was older than him. Maybe a decade older than him. He had thought about it plenty of times. Silly things: Would they hate each other’s music, would they always wear clashing styles of clothing, would Hodge always be there? But didn’t everyone have to learn to appreciate the other person for who they were?

  “I know.” He wanted to ask “Why?” but stopped himself. “I hope this doesn’t make it uncomfortable between us. Can you still think of me as a friend?”

  She let go of the hug, smiling again. “I always will. Thanks.” She patted her leg for Moxie to follow her back to her room.

  “Hurley, before you go. I need to show you what has been happening to my leg.” The words were out before Jax could reconsider. What if the leg withered away in someone else’s vision? No—it was his precious hope. But … what if it did have to be cut off, if something was wrong with his body?

  “Your leg? What is it?” She came back into the room.

  Jax sat on the chair and took a deep breath. “Close the door for a minute. I … don’t know what’s happening. And I should have told someone earlier.”

  He pulled up the pant leg, and he showed her the shape of what looked like a small foot inside the gray sock he wore.

  Her eyes went wide. “Jax, what is that?”

  He pulled the sock off. The intense sensitivity had diminished as the leg had grown. It was pink, only four inches long, shriveled and hideous, like a quarter-moon raisin.

  It was wrong to show her. It was wrong to hope it was really growing. Looking at it now, showing Grimshaw, Jax became ashamed of himself for wanting it to grow back. He had seen exactly what he wanted to. Now, with his self-deceptive spells being broken by another person’s intrusive eyes, it just looked disgusting.

  “Oh my gosh! Your leg,” she gasped. “You’re coming apart! Does it hurt?” She was horrified, looking at the growth like it might kill Jax. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. What happened? I just … don’t understand. What did you do?” She kept stopping herself from touching it. “Did you have one grown? It’s only been a few weeks!” She tried to whisper again. “Why is it pink?”

  “I didn’t do it. I haven’t done anything. The leg grew itself.”

  She looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

  “Every morning, it seems to have grown a few centimeters in the night. I didn’t know what was happening, but I didn’t want to give up the hope that it was real, and have someone cut it off.” He stretched out the toes and wiggled them gently.

  “There really isn’t any seam is there?” She was looking at the transition from his upper calf into the skin of the pink leg. “No scar tissue. I can’t believe it. Does it hurt?” She held her hand o
ver the leg, asking permission to touch it.

  “Not as much.” Jax reconsidered and said, “Well, it doesn’t hurt, but it is … a little sensitive.”

  “That’s incredible,” she said, as the tip of her finger sent tingles of sensation through Jax’s nervous system.

  “You think it looks normal?” It hadn’t deflated. It hadn’t shriveled and fallen off now that someone else had seen it.

  “It’s hard to tell. I mean, it looks fine, except for being a little red and small. Have you walked on it?”

  “No. I have been terrified that any pressure might destroy whatever growth is going on. And I don’t want a doctor telling me it has to come off, or putting me through a round of tests because I’m some kind of anomaly.” He started to pull the sock back over it.

  Grimshaw nodded. “I guess you’re right. Yeah, probably best to let it grow, if it’s growing. It’s incredible. Can we show Hodge in the morning?”

  Jax stood up, putting the crutches under his arms, and walked to the door with her again.

  “Yeah. Let’s do that,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She held his hand lightly. “Good night, Jax.”

  And she kissed him. Then she walked out into the hall. Moxie circled around her legs and went with her into her room.

  Jax stood there, more confused than ever. He didn’t want to move, for fear that the sense of her lips against his might vanish forever. Just friends.

  ——

  By Jax's birthday, January 20th, the leg had grown back to its full length. It had been around two months since he had fought for his life in the arena. That time had started as an agonizing eternity of suffering, but now he didn’t want it to end. But finally the fight came back for him. When Hank showed up, it was time for Jax to decide.

  Chapter 21

  Pulled Forward

  Jax was surprised by Hank’s appearance in person. His eyes had signs of lost sleep. His hair had begun to form a curly nest on his head. Clothes and a pair of shoes were tucked under his arm. He panted and finally said, “I figured out the pyramid. We have the perfect opportunity to get it, right now.”