Guardian's Rise

by Matthew Renard

  Don’t be stupid, Jay, it told me. No way are they actually going to go through with it. They’re trying to scare you into confessing. Just keep saying you have no powers and OH GOD WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!

  I looked down at the floor. My hand had fallen next to my feet, coming to a rest next to my shoe, thumb-side first. Ron stepped back, looking in shock. Jacob, too, stared at his cleaver as if he couldn’t really believe what he had done. As if he hadn’t just cut off my hand.

  The human body doesn’t really remember pain, or so Doctor McMannus told me, once. We can’t compare pain now to pain then, because although we experience aches, and we remember what it felt like to be in pain, our body doesn’t keep a record. I have no idea if he was telling the truth or not, but it sounds right. So when Sammy, later, would ask if it hurt more to get my legs crushed or my new eyes put in, or to have crazy racist Americans chop my right hand off, I don’t entirely think he was happy with my answer of “Yes”. It was, however, the only answer I could give him.

  ‘Jacob!’ Ron managed to spit out. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I... I...’

  My only consolation at that point was that I could keep my identity safe. It was a good few seconds after my hand had hit the floor with a dry slapping sound, and the pain was shooting up and down my arm tremendously. They clearly couldn’t connect me with being Augmented now.

  Some consolation.

  ‘I didn’t think...’ He looked at the blood on the floor, and on his cleaver. ‘I’m so sorry!’ He looked at Ron whilst he said this, as if I didn’t exist. As if he hadn’t just cut my hand off. The faint smell of cooking meat emanated from the wound, and I was glad that the cleaver had been heated up. I raised my handless arm to my face, in shock. As bad as the pain was, it smelled horrible. It also smelled familiar, and I had to fight to not think about the explosion at the Foundation too much.

  ‘Get me,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘To a hospital.’ I thought back. ‘Saint Cassian’s. Doctor McMannus.’ The two men turned to stare at me dumbly. ‘Now!’

  ‘We need to clean this up, Ron!’ Jacob whined. ‘I can’t go to prison.’

  ‘What about me? I’m an accessory...’

  Trying to ignore the pain, I stood.

  ‘Hey!’ Jacob yelled. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘To... a... hospital!’

  I stumbled off, finding the door and barging through it, Ron and Jacob a good few seconds behind me in pursuit. I ducked behind a corner, propping myself up against the wall. I was beginning to pant, struggling to breath. You’re going into shock, idiot. A voice in my head whispered at me.

  Shut up.

  You need to get to a hospital. Or to the Centre. The voice reminded me. But you need to do it now.

  ‘Where’d he go?’ I could hear Ron’s voice.

  ‘He won’t get far!’ Jacob replied, and I could hear him ratcheting a shotgun.

  Americans and their bloody guns...

  I hit the button on my belt, and SAMI came online instantly.

  ‘Well. This is new!’ My AI was the master of understatement. ‘We need to get you help.’

  ‘Get me to EPIC.’ I muttered. ‘And contact Mr McMannus. See if he’ll make a house-call.’

  ‘Compliance!’

  I rocketed up into the air, not caring if Ron or Jacob saw me. I needed help.

  SAMI landed us perfectly outside the Centre’s main entrance. Doctor McMannus was waiting with a trolley, which he pointed at as I turned off my costume.

  ‘Lay down. Now.’

  I did as I was told to, as he grumbled at me. ‘Spent hours and hours getting you back in shape, fixing you, and this is how you re-pay me. You get your hand chopped off by some Rednecks.’

  ‘They were-’

  ‘Oh, be quiet Mr Anson, I’m griping. A man my age has earned the right to gripe, don’t you think?’ He shook his head. ‘Honestly.’ He pushed me inside, and porters took over the job of wheeling me down a corridor as he hopped onto the side, examining my arm as we glided towards the surgery wing. ‘You’d think you would take better care of yourself and not do...whatever it is I think you were doing. And I can only assume you were doing what I think you were. Which is silly.’

  ‘I-’

  ‘I haven’t finished griping yet, young man.’ The doctor sighed. ‘Honestly. All that time, effort, and money into getting you on your feet, and here you are again.’ He lifted my stump, and peered at it. ‘Not terrible. I’m assuming that it was a heated knife of some kind?’

  ‘A meat cleaver.’

  He considered my words. ‘Well...that’d do it.’ He considered something. ‘I would assume, from the costume, that you are the so-called Fire Guardian?’

  I nodded weakly as we rolled into the operating room. McMannus reached over me and pulled a gas mask off a nearby stand, strapping it to my face. ‘You know...I may have just the thing to help you out...’

  He became very... wavy. Wavy and dark. The world around him also became wavy and dark.

  ‘See you in a few hours, Mr Anson.’

  The world went black, and the pain evaporated.

  I awoke some hours later, in an uncomfortable bed, pinned down by sheets. It was dark outside; the quarter moon shone dimly - it struggled to get through the thick, heavy clouds and the light pollution from The Shining City. Remembering where I was, I looked down at my right hand.

  It was metal. I experimentally tried to flex my fingers, but they lay motionless - a knight with a gauntlet I wasn’t able to move.

  ‘Nice hand.’ I glanced up. There, lounging on a sofa which appeared to be far more comfortable than my hospital bed, was Sammy. He was bleary eyed, as if he had just woken up, but was still wearing his same Sammy smirk, as if he had been let in on a joke that the rest of the world hadn’t caught up with yet.

  ‘I can’t use it yet.’

  He shrugged at me. ‘Well. There goes your love life.’ I wanted to tell him that he’d already done that joke, but something about his smile stopped me. It had widened, but it didn’t touch his eyes. He yawned and stretched out. ‘Man, I’m wiped out. Anyway, what happened?’

  I told him everything - from Aleph’s casual degrading remarks about people without powers, to Ron’s conspiracy theory. When I’d finished, he sat still, regarding me silently, his expression blank.

  ‘Well?’ I prompted.

  ‘Sounds like you’ve had quite a day.’

  ‘I don’t get it! I’m supposed...’ I paused. ‘I’m supposed to be a hero. I’m supposed to be the good guy!’ I felt tears threatening to ell up in my eyes. ‘Why can’t people understand that I’m only trying to help them?’

  He smiled mirthlessly. ‘Yeah. Why can’t people understand that the person who’s different only wants to live their life the way they want to?’

  ‘Sammy, I-’

  ‘Why couldn’t I come with?’

  I stared at him. He looked back levelly. ‘Why... couldn’t you come get abused and tortured?’ I felt a flash of anger. ‘Okay, Sammy, yeah. Next time I know I’m going to get a limb cut off, I’ll be sure to invite you, shall I?’

  ‘You didn’t know you were going to get your hand chopped off by some stupid Redneck.’ Sammy retorted. ‘I only wanted to come to Capehill to meet some PIs. You knew that.’

  ‘Sammy...’

  ‘You knew that!’ Sammy shouted. ‘and when you have the chance to meet some and invite me... you don’t. You turned me down and gave me some stupid excuse. “Ohh, they can’t see Jason Anson’s best friend”. None of them know who I am, idiot. That was a terrible excuse.’ He shook his head, and his voice got quieter and more tired, as if he had burned up all his energy on that one outburst. ‘You didn’t know all that would happen. I’m sorry that it did, Jay, really I am. You don’t know how much it hurts me to see you back here. But if I had been there, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. we could have had each other’s backs.’

  ‘Or you could be dead.’

 
He paused, looking at me. ‘Is that really what your concern is?’

  ‘What else would it be?’

  He maintained his gaze for a few long beats, before shaking his head. ‘You know what? Never mind.’ He ran his fingers up his face and through his hair. ‘It’s been a long day, man.’

  ‘Yeah, for you and me both.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. You were asleep for some of it.’ He pointed to my hand. ‘So what’s the deal with the hand?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘What it does, Mr Edwards,’ said Doctor McMannus from the doorway, ‘is a very good job of being a hand. Although we’ll need to get some synthskin on it fairly quickly, if we’re going to pass it off as the real thing.’

  I examined it closer as Doctor McMannus walked towards me, Sammy joining him from the couch. ‘If you’re asking if it does anything special, the answer is “not at the current time”.’ I must have looked disappointed, because he quickly added, ‘Of course, once Mr Anson is able to move his hand...’

  ‘What?’

  Doctor McMannus pulled a tablet PC out from his lab-coat and gave it to me. I fiddled with it, trying to hold it and get it to work one handed.

  ‘What do you know about chemistry, Mr Anson?’

  ‘Very little.’ I confessed. At school, I’d been more interested in Rachel Swiftington than chemical reactions. Not that she had known I existed.

  ‘The air is made up of certain elements.’

  ‘You mean like oxygen, carbon dioxide and all that?’ Sammy interjected. Doctor McMannus gave him a smile, as if he were a bright student in a class.

  ‘Exactly like that, Mr Edwards. Nitrogen is the most abundant of all of these, with oxygen in second place. The sixth most common of these is Methane.’

  ‘The fart gas?’

  Doctor McMannus took away the smile. ‘I wouldn’t put it in exactly those terms, Mr Edwards...’ He sighed. ‘It represents approximately .0002% of the atmosphere.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘More if you’ve eaten beans the night before.’ Sammy cracked, earning a glare from the doctor. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Anyway...’ McMannus continued. ‘Your hand absorbs the methane in the atmosphere and stores it.’

  My head swam, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the after effects of the anaesthetic, or trying to figure out the maths of whether it was even a feasible idea.

  ‘But you said the methane was...point zero zero two percent of the air?’

  ‘.0002%. You missed a zero.’

  ‘That’s nothing!’

  ‘Your legs do it. How do you think you can fly?’

  ‘They run off methane?’

  Sammy started snickering. ‘You fly because of farts. That’s amazing.’

  ‘Methane is rapidly becoming more and more prevalent in the air, Mr Anson.’ We ignored Sammy. ‘The war didn’t help matters any, but even before that, the atmospheric methane had increased by a factor of 2.5 over the hundred or so years because of the environmental factors at play.’

  ‘What environmental factors?’

  ‘Us.’ McMannus shrugged. ‘Before the Industrial Revolution, the methane was of a much lower concentration. But such is life, I suppose. If it enables you to fly, then so be it. Something good coming from Global Warming.’ He paused. ‘So, your hand will absorb the atmospheric methane, and then, in a manner similar to your legs, will utilise it as a fuel source.’

  ‘For what?’

  Doctor McMannus smiled. ‘Ah. Well, in your hand, you have 15 joints: your four fingers have three, your thumb has two, and you have one in your wrist. Correct?’

  ‘Okay.’ I nodded.

  ‘Whenever you flex or move one of your joints, it generates kinetic energy. This energy is then stored in a small rechargeable battery near your palm. When you position your hand in a particular way, it will activate a switch, releasing a spark along with an expulsion of methane.’ Doctor McMannus shrugged. ‘You will then be able to use your hand to guide the resulting force kinetically.’

  ‘I... what?’

  Sammy caught on before I did. ‘Oh, Doc, that’s amazing.’

  ‘Doctor. And thank you.’

  ‘What?’

  It was Sammy who answered. ‘You’re going to be able to throw fireballs.’

  ‘And your Synthskin will be specially treated to weather the heat and expulsion of gas from this. Your hand will look and feel like your old one did and won’t suffer any ill effects from this new addition to your arsenal.’

  I smiled in surprise, and shock. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, Sammy jumped in.

  ‘I guess you could say you’re... fully armed, now?’ Without thinking, I raised my right hand and made a rude gesture, to Sammy’s delight. ‘You wish, mate. And also, you’re picking up using that hand quickly!’

  Doctor McMannus pushed his spectacles up his nose. ‘Yes, it seems that the practice Mr Anson has received in using his legs and left arm have left him able to cope with the new limb attachment remarkably well.’ He stared at me. ‘However, Mr Anson, I would wholeheartedly recommend you not lose any more.’

  I nodded and smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘I don’t have any left to lose, Doc.’

  ‘Quite so.’ He checked his watch. ‘Gentlemen, we need to get Mr Anson to the Synth-skin vats. There’s a time factor in applying the heat treated sythn-skin, and the pigmentation should match Mr Anson’s natural skin tone by now. Come on, now, Mr Edwards. Let’s give your friend a-’

  ‘Hand?’ Sammy interjected.

  ‘Well, I was going to say, “a helpful push”, but... if you like.’

  Sammy gave a tired smile, and they wheeled my bed out of the room, and towards the Synth-skin vats.

  I had never been to the vats before; at least, not whilst I was conscious. It was an interesting experience, and although I’ve had to go back a few times for various...incidents since, I don’t think I’ve ever got used to it. Nor would I want to.

  When I was wheeled in, I was hit by a faint smell: that of a barbecue. Not that I could smell cooking meat, but there was definitely something in the room that made me unable to shake the mental image of my father, stood in front of a small red kettle-drum barbecue, a lopsided smile on his face and a spatula in his hand. I felt a small pang of sadness, before Doctor McMannus directed my attention to a cylinder, mostly a clear hard substance with some chrome around the edges. Inside was a pinkish creamy sludge, which oozed slowly within the tube when McMannus picked it up. Heavy and viscous, it rolled against the sides, although left no residue.

  ‘This is it.’ McMannus beamed. ‘This is your Synth-skin. If you’d like to just rest your hand inside the applicator? He twisted open the top of the cylinder, which parted with a dull hissing whoosh. I peered inside, and that barbecue smell hit me in the face, flooding my nose with memories of summer.

  ‘Is that... charcoal?’ Sammy queried with an eyebrow raised.

  Doctor McMannus smiled a little evilly. ‘People always ask that. the smell of cooking flesh produces a smell not unlike burning charcoal.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Whenever I come down here, I always get a little hungry afterwards, in fact.’

  Sammy and I both stared at him.

  ‘What?’ He started, a little defensively.

  ‘No, nothing at all.’ I eyed the cylinder, and slipped my hand inside it slowly, feeling more than a little disgusted with the image of my new metal hand being enveloped by a goo.

  ‘You need to leave your hand in there for approximately one hour, to allow the synthskin time to set, and to begin bonding with the skin on your arm.’ Doctor McMannus checked his watch. ‘Does anybody feel like a burger?’ He continued, ignoring our looks of shock. ‘The all-night burger joint around the corner does some lovely meals, and medical personnel get a 15% discount.’

  We shook our heads.

  ‘Pity.’ He nodded to us and left.

  ‘Dude.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I gl
anced at Sammy, glad to take my eyes off the departing form of my doctor.

  ‘You don’t think he’s a cannibal, do you?’

  ‘What?’ I blinked. ‘No! Well...’

  We both fell into an uneasy silence.

  ‘Maybe he ate your old hand.’

  ‘Ew! Disgusting, Sammy.’

  He yawned and smiled lopsidedly. ‘Thanks. I do what I can.’

  ‘Are you tired? Am I keeping you awake?’

  ‘It’s 3am, Jay.’

  ‘It is?’ I looked around the walls for a clock but saw none.

  ‘Yeah. Not surprising you didn’t know, since your watch probably fell off when your hand got the chop.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re getting closer and closer to the New Year.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah. So, have you got any Resolutions yet? Anything you want to achieve in the New Year?’

  I flexed my left fingers gently, thinking about the Unstoppable Squad, Jacob and Ron, and Nemesis. Mostly Nemesis, and those red, baleful eyes.

  ‘Just one.’

  Chapter 16

  The Ball Dropping

  I adjusted my bow tie, with some obvious difficulties.

  Michelle had assisted with my hand, but I took to it remarkably quickly, all things considered. Within a few hours, I had managed to regain most of my general use, although I was told fine control would take several weeks. “‘However,’” she had told me, “‘the fact that you’ve only just gone through this with one arm means you’re more used to this, and so you can adjust faster the second time around.’”

  “‘But will I be able to tie a bowtie for tonight?’” I had asked.

  Michelle had laughed, and suggested I get a clip-on.

  So, a clip-on I wore.

  However, as I looked at myself in the mirror of my washroom, I couldn’t tell any difference between a clip-on bow tie and a real one I had done myself. Except for the part where I didn’t know how to tie a bow tie (that’s what YouTube is for, after all), I thought I looked pretty good in my tuxedo, carefully tailored by Elijah Noch; the white of my shirt gleamed against the black jacket and cummerbund, and the silver cufflinks, subtle and smart, were a small and secret nod to a series of movies I had enjoyed when I was younger. I was certain only Sammy would get the reference, and even then he probably wouldn’t notice - it seems he had scored himself a date to the New Year’s Eve party, in the form of one of the workers at the Centre: an Augmented Person who had lost his right arm in the Danti war, named Geoff.