by Sean Platt
Boricio laughed, then made one of his horribly off-color jokes: “Nah, baby, you know you’re the only woman who can satisfy me. I’d never cheat on you. But I can’t get away with murder with you watching, so I’m waiting for you to leave so I can go downstairs and find me a victim; waiting on you to leave so I can commit some truly unspeakable acts.”
Rose half laughed because she didn’t know what else to do when Boricio was so … odd. She pulled on her panties and a smart looking charcoal skirt, already laid out, then continued getting ready, staying topless for Boricio.
A second later her man was wearing that look, and sidled beside Rose at the mirror. “You look like you’re keeping Victoria’s secret in that skirt,” he said.
Rose laughed, knowing exactly what Boricio wanted. “Thanks.”
“Mind lifting it up for, oh I don’t know, four or five minutes? Maybe less.”
Rose said, “No,” even though she meant yes. She would happily lift her skirt, lower her panties, and let Boricio knock the migraines from inside her. But before she could play, her phone buzzed with a text. She picked it up, looked at the screen, then showed the text to Boricio. “Gotta go,” she said. “Veronica’s waiting downstairs.”
“OK,” Boricio shrugged. “Your loss. I was planning to lay my healin’ hands all over your sweet body, kill that headache.”
Rose laughed again, touched up her makeup, put on her bra and top, then quickly finished, kissed Boricio on the cheek, went downstairs and through the lobby, and climbed into Veronica’s silver Lexus, waiting outside just past the valets.
“Why so pale?” Veronica asked as Rose slammed the silver door shut.
“I feel like shit,” Rose admitted. “But I’m here to play ball, I promise. No one has to know I feel run down by a bus but you. Just tell me what to say and I’ll say it. This stuff all stresses me out so much, I just want it to be over. I don’t even care who makes the movie anymore.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Veronica said. “Of course you do. The Maris Brothers will knock this out of the park, then after they do, you can write whatever the hell you want forever, OK? Trust me.”
“I’m in the car, aren’t I?”
“That you are,” Veronica said, then pulled away from the hotel and drove the remainder of the way to Marina’s playing XM softly in the background and leaving Rose to nestle her pounding head against the soft, leather seat. Veronica spoke only through the commercial breaks, punctuating each with a fresh promise that all would be fine.
Rose tried rubbing the stress from her temples, trying to believe Veronica, telling herself that everything would be fine, and over soon. Marina lived in Malibu in what wasn’t just the biggest house Rose had ever seen, it was easily bigger than the next three piled together. Veronica’s Lexus was taken by a valet in front — how many visitors did she get? Then they were led into a large foyer and asked to wait. Rose expected a long pause, taking several minutes seemingly designed to feel the weight of Marina’s importance, but the interlude lasted only a minute. Marina met them almost immediately, took Rose’s hands in hers, and kissed her warmly on each cheek as if she’d known her forever and was grateful for their reunion.
Marina led the girls into a gorgeous study, with a long wall of glass looking out onto a tennis court, pool, and lush gardens — the Pacific must have been on the other side — then gestured for Rose to sit on a plush, white-leather sofa beside Veronica. Marina sat in an overstuffed chair across from them.
After a few minutes of shockingly natural small talk, Marina bluntly said, “So, Rose, the Brothers will be here shortly. In the meantime, I’d love for you to tell me what you think of Original Design.”
Rose was grateful that she’d refused Marina’s offer for a drink, surely she would have lost a swallow to spit. She didn’t know what to say, and had no idea how to answer. She only knew a little about the Church, or cult as Boricio insisted it was. She didn’t want to say anything false — Rose wasn’t wired to pretend — but also didn’t want to insult Marina, nor did she want to jeopardize what could be an amazing future, starting with the Maris Brothers.
“Honestly,” she looked directly into Marina’s eyes. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know much about the Church at all, other than the same rumors everyone’s heard, and I’m smart enough not to trust those. I have an open mind, and would love to learn more, but do have my own ideas about faith and spirituality — I’m sure you got at least some of that if you’ve read The Billfold — and am not really looking for anything to join or believe in.”
Marina gave Rose what looked like a well-practiced smile. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve not read The Billfold, yet. I only just heard about this meeting and didn’t want to scan it. I trust Veronica’s judgment completely, though, and I’m sure if she thinks it’s right for the Brothers, it is. I promise I’ll read it if things go well between us.” Marina uncrossed her legs, shifted in her seat, then crossed them the opposite way. “I do want to make certain that you understand our religion isn’t a cult, and that it’s in no way ‘wacky.’ In fact, I would argue that even if we’re among the world’s smallest, our religion is the best because unlike so many others, we have science behind us.”
“Science?” Rose raised her eyebrows. She felt Veronica, nervous beside her.
“Yes, of course,” Marina nodded. “Science. You’ll never find the Church of Original Design’s true beliefs in the rumor rags. But it’s a fact: Our religion is founded on research that no one wants to discuss because it conflicts, rather violently, with so much of what western science chooses to believe, even though their beliefs have been proven wrong time and again.”
Rose tried to hold her smile as she shifted in her seat.
“Man is made up of mind and body, but no one outside of our Church seems interested in The Current — the force between the two. If you can understand The Current, then you can understand the Universe. Most Original Design funding is spent in understanding this, which is why our centers have some of the best brain and recovery research in the world.”
Rose’s head felt like it was about to burst; it was a melon beneath a hammer, and hurt enough before she started trying to hold a non-judgmental expression.
Marina laughed. “I can tell what you’re thinking, and I promise, it’s not bullshit. I don’t need to convince you, and I could talk all day about the science, but I won’t. I’m not trying to get you to join the Church, Rose, I simply want to prepare you. If the Brothers want to work with you, which it seems like they will, it’s in our best interests to give you some background so you’re not overwhelmed or weirded out. And what’s better than background?” Marina smiled, then answered herself. “Proof, Rose. Proof is better. I have no secrets, and love to share; if you have questions, I have answers. We still have a few minutes before the Brothers arrive, might I suggest using a few of those minutes for proof, and letting me help you?”
“What do you mean?” Rose felt her forehead beading with sweat. She wished Boricio hadn’t stayed back at the hotel.
“Well,” Marina uncrossed her legs and folded her hands. “Do you have any problems? Troubling pains you’ve been unable to get rid of?”
Without thinking, Rose admitted, “Yes, I have the worst, most crippling migraines.” She swallowed and added, “I have one right now.”
“And they won’t go away?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I’ve had them on and off all my life, but they’ve recently come back with a vengeance.”
“Would you like me to take your headache away right now, then make sure it will never return?”
Joking, Rose said, “Do that and I’ll sign my membership papers before leaving this room.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.” Marina stood, laughing, and held out her hand for Rose. “Come on, follow me.”
She crossed the room to a door behind her desk, swiped her thumb across a small pad on the wall beside it, then stepped through the doorway and gestured for Veronica and Rose to fo
llow.
Rose looked at Veronica hesitantly. She nodded and Rose followed. If Boricio had been with her, there was no way in hell he would’ve let her go into the room. But Boricio wasn’t with them, and Rose didn’t want to offend her host and potential business partner. She trusted Veronica as much as she trusted Boricio, at least when it came to stuff like this. She figured she was at least safe from a brainwashing.
The room was sparse, and seemed to have no materials other than glass and steel. In the room’s center stood a thin metal chamber with a small oval window at the top. The doors were parted as if in invitation. Rose thought it looked like something from Star Trek.
“Five minutes in there,” Marina pointed to the tube, “and you’ll never get a headache again.”
Rose stared at the tube, then at Marina, speechless.
Marina smiled. “I know it seems impossible to believe, but it’s true, Rose. This is science that no one else has because so few people are willing to believe in miracles, even if they’re the sort that can be easily explained by science. And unfortunately,” she added with a sigh, “our government is in the business of preventing us from sharing.”
Rose didn’t ask what Marina meant, even though she wanted to know. Instead she said, “How does it work?”
“When we have more time, I’ll be happy to give you a longer explanation. For now, let’s just say it fixes what’s broken inside you.”
Rose looked from the machine to Marina, then back to the tube, raising her eyebrows. As if to answer her unspoken objection, Marina said, “The simplest explanation: The machine finds the cells in your body most in need of repair, then repairs them.”
“What’s it called?” Rose whispered, meaning to ask in a normal voice.
“The machine is called The Capacitor; it fixes your Current.”
Veronica appeared in the doorway, and said, “It’s completely safe, Rose.”
Even though a part of Rose was terrified, most of her was awed, excited, and curious. She stepped into the chamber as if pulled, then planted her back flat against the plush interior and folded her arms across her chest as instructed. The doors closed, and she heard a whir, like magnets, Rose thought for some reason.
The chamber filled with brilliant-blue light and spun her thoughts until they circled euphoria.
Before the whirring, Marina told Rose the treatment would last five minutes. But it didn’t feel like five minutes to Rose. It felt like a year somehow compressed into seconds.
Time meant nothing when everything else felt so empty.
Rose was blank: All she could see inside herself was an endless swath of nighttime, stars doused from her sky one at a time before twinkling back by the twos, brighter and more brilliant than before, clotting black with glittered intensity. Outside her mind and inside the chamber, which had gone from rather narrow and perfectly small to roughly the size of a sprawling meadow, bright-blue sparks crackled and leapt from her skin.
When the chamber doors finally opened, after five minutes or forever, Rose felt more whole — more aware — than she had ever felt before. She had a deep and sudden need to see Boricio, almost an ache, then that feeling faded into a placid calm and turned her headache to a distant memory.
“How do you feel?” Marina asked, beaming as the chamber doors parted.
Rose had no idea how to answer. She wanted to say, better than I’ve ever felt in my life, like I’ve died and gone to heaven, unreal, or any other of a thousand superlatives, but what she felt was too good to be true.
“I don’t know,” Rose said, working not to stutter. “Did you guys put some kind of drugs in the air?”
Veronica giggled and shook her head no. “It’s amazing, right?”
Rose swallowed and nodded, not knowing what to do or say or think. She had no idea if the feelings in her mind and body, and The Current between them was real, or whether it was a placebo designed by lights and wizardry inside the chamber — a magician’s trick — and Marina’s power of suggestion.
Marina took Rose by the hand and led her out of the small room and then away from her office. “Don’t answer now,” she said. “It’s too soon. Your body will want to process what’s happened, and your mind requires time to settle around its newly repaired cells. Your body will accept this more easily than your brain. But don’t worry,” she took Rose’s hand in hers, “everything will get easier to understand. And believe me, you’ll never want to live without The Capacitor ever again. Fortunately, now, you won’t ever have to.”
Rose was still silent, shuffling on her feet without any clue what to say in response to Marina.
“It’s okay that you don’t know what to think,” Marina said, reassuringly. “It would be far odder if you did. I’d take offense if you were to blindly believe, and would wonder about your character; faith is empty if never questioned.”
They ascended the stairs, walking toward a second-floor meeting room where Marina said they would meet the Brothers. Just outside the room, they ran into the siblings approaching from the other direction. Because the Brothers didn’t like to be photographed, Rose had found little while searching online, other than a few photos taken away from the set, and mostly from far away. She was startled when she saw them, though it took her a few, long seconds to figure out why.
In the few photos she had seen, one of the brothers — she wasn’t sure which — was a bit heavy, if she was being kind. Boricio, on the three occasions Rose had found a picture said, “Reason there aren’t more pictures of fatty-fatty fat fat is that most photographers get sucked right into his gravitational pull right after they’re snapped,” “At least that motherfucker never has to worry about getting kidnapped,” and “Think those are Double D’s?”
Now, standing before her, both brothers were model-thin. The difference was striking: Rose wondered if that was the work of the machine.
Could you nuke fat cells like that?
Is this what being rich means in the 21st Century?
The brothers were pale, strikingly so, with almost-white hair, despite being in their early 20s, and piercing, blue eyes.
The Brothers were also nothing like Rose expected: They were calm and soft-spoken, overly kind and well-mannered. One never spoke over the other, always waiting for what Rose thought seemed like exact turns. One would ask a question, then wait for Rose to respond in full before the other brother would follow up. The length of each question seemed the same, almost precisely. Most odd, it seemed that the brother sitting on the left — or was it the right? — asked logic-based questions while the other one seemed more focused on creativity.
By the end of the conversation Rose’s head was swimming, and she could barely tell up from down. She certainly couldn’t tell the Brothers apart.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Sorry?” she said, feeling pulled into a daze by her ankles.
“Would you like something to drink?” the Brother repeated. “We’re going to down to Marina’s office for a few minutes, just the three of us. Would you care for something to eat or drink while waiting?”
“No, thank you,” Rose shook her head.
Her world moved at half speed as the Brothers followed Marina from the meeting room and back into the hall, leaving Rose alone with Veronica.
“Well?” Veronica said.
Rose looked at her agent, silent.
“Well?” Veronica tried again. “What did you think? Amazing, right?”
Rose could remember almost nothing from the last hour, and only knew it had been that long because the small clock on the corner desk said so. She remembered leaving Marina’s office and then running into the Brothers at the end of the hall. She remembered excitement and bubbling energy, but couldn’t draw a single line between her thoughts or memories. Rose did remember, however, that yes, it was quite amazing.
“Yes,” she said. “It was amazing.”
As Rose spoke to Veronica, her fog slowly lifted. By the time Marina returned to the meeting r
oom — without the Brothers — Rose was giddy, smiling ear to ear and eager to hear the good news she knew would be coming.
Marina beamed, holding her arms wide. “They’re thrilled to be working with you, Rose,” she said. “The Billfold is the Maris Brothers’ next official project. They’ll be announcing it once all the contracts are signed next week. If you can stay a bit longer?”
“Of course, I can stay!” Rose said, excited, hoping Boricio wouldn’t mind.
Rose wanted to explode in excitement, and while she and Veronica talked a lot on the trip back to her hotel, she was saving her best words for Boricio.
She couldn’t wait to share the good news with him. She pictured him in the hotel room, waiting anxiously for her return.
* * * *
CHAPTER 4 — Boricio Wolfe
With Rose finally gone, it was time for Boricio to beat his id into submission.
He had a quiet covenant with himself, set into place after swapping the dead world back for his old and frisky one, after he’d been supposedly fixed by Luca the Boy Wonder.
But Boricio wasn’t really fixed, though he was a bitch and a half better than he had been before, and pigs in a blanket cozier with the demons who’d not bothered to stop wrassling inside him. Finally, Boricio had learned the right way to feed them.
Before all the shit that went down with that whole other world, Boricio was indiscriminate with his purging. But not anymore, he’d gone from bomber to sniper.
While Boricio had always been careful enough to never get caught, he was also never worried. Now he was obsessively careful, his purging had to stay invisible.
Fortunately, Boricio had never been prone to the weaknesses of other serial killers. For one, he never kept souvenirs, because mementos were for pussies. What sort of sick fucker kept ornaments to commemorate a purging? You put 100 random motherfuckers in a row, and 99 would agree that Boricio was a sick fucking duck. But Boricio said beer-battered bullshit to that: Sick was keeping shit after a kill.
Nor had Boricio ever stuck to patterns or taunted the authorities with cryptic messages. That bullshit about killers playing cat and mouse with the cops was just an excuse to get handsome actors waving plastic guns in well-lit shadows. Why the fuck anyone would ever want to play games with gumshoes was a fucking whodunit to Boricio. There was a right way to do it: purge, change the mother fucking channel, then return to regularly scheduled programming later.
