by Barry Lyga
Sintaa rose as well and slung an arm around Thanos’s shoulders. “We have everything here. There’s nothing wrong. You’re just…”
“Mordant?” Thanos suggested.
“I don’t know that word,” Sintaa admitted, “but it sounds about right.”
Thanos brooded, staring straight ahead. Something was wrong. Something he could not identify. And for the first time in his life, the wrongness wasn’t him.
On their way back from the edge of the Eternal City, they encountered a cluttered moving walkway, jammed with pedestrians. Mornings and twilight were congested like this, as the Eternal City’s work shifts swapped places. Thanos and Sintaa threaded their way carefully through the throngs, making slow but steady progress against the wave of commuters. There was little room to maneuver, and without realizing it, Thanos was soon rammed into by a man walking hurriedly in the opposite direction.
Thanos was a child, but he was big and solid; the man stumbled, slewed to one side, and tried to replant his foot to stay upright. Unfortunately, his foot slipped into the groove where the moving walkway met the berm, shifting his center of gravity. Thanos understood too well the physics of it as he watched the man lurch to one side, almost catch himself, then continue down.
He also understood what the loud crack meant, even before the man—now prone—grabbed at his ankle and screamed in pain.
The crowd noticed only insofar as it rerouted itself around the clot in the commutation stream. Thanos grabbed Sintaa by the wrist. “We should help him,” he insisted, dragging Sintaa off the walkway and to the man’s side. The man was still stuck in the groove, his leg twisted at an unnatural and painful angle. Thanos crouched down, surveying the area.
“I need you to stand up,” Thanos told the man. “We’ll help support you.”
“You did this to me!” the man whined through clenched teeth. His eyes were shut against the pain. “You knocked me over!”
Sintaa fumed. “You walked into him.”
Thanos shushed his friend with a glance and gestured for him to help, but Sintaa obstinately refused, shaking his head and folding his arms over his chest. So Thanos slipped his hands under the man’s leg and levered it up, trying to straighten it enough to get his foot out of the groove.
The man howled in new pain.
“Stop fighting me,” Thanos said, struggling with the writhing limb. “It will only hurt for a moment, and then you’ll be free.”
The man’s eyes flew open and fear overrode the pain. “What are you doing to me?” he demanded. “Help! Help!”
“I am helping!” Thanos told him. Another centimeter, maybe two, and he’d be able to slip the man’s foot out of the groove.
“Help me!” the man cried out, a new urgency and terror in his voice.
“Stay still or try to stand,” Thanos insisted. “I can get you free—”
“Stop him!” the man howled. “Someone stop him!”
“Um, Thanos…?”
Thanos looked up at Sintaa, then over to the crowd. The man’s fear seemed to reach out and plunge into the crowd. People stopped, turned. They stared at Thanos, who was trying to pull the man free from the walkway groove, which would be an easier task if that leg would stop jittering and moving around.
“You,” Thanos commanded, pointing to a man in the crowd. “Get on the other side. Stabilize his leg.”
The man did nothing.
“Did you not hear me?” Thanos demanded. “He’s in pain!”
When the man still demurred, Thanos barked his order at someone else, a woman standing nearby. She, too, shrank away.
“Get help!” the injured man cried. “He pushed me down! He’s trying to rip my foot off!”
“What?” Thanos turned away from the crowd. “I did no such thing!”
“He didn’t,” Sintaa offered, but Thanos could tell from the man’s expression that he would continue to cling stubbornly to his blinkered version of events.
And now Thanos heard muttering from the crowd. Heard his own name, his father’s. He was known. Of course. He wore an indelible form of identification.
The man lying next to him moaned as the pain overcame him. Thanos saw a bit of bone breaking through the surface of the ankle, along with fresh blood. If the man had stopped thrashing… If he’d just let Thanos help…
“You would rather suffer than—”
“Thanos,” Sintaa interrupted, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We should go.”
Thanos didn’t want to go—he had a case to make, and it was persuasive. But a tremble in his friend’s voice made him reassess the situation. The crowd’s fear was quickly corroding into anger and outrage. They were many and he was one.
He let Sintaa help him to his feet, and then they pushed their way through the crowd—it parted, almost reluctantly—and raced away.
“That could have gotten ugly,” Sintaa said.
Thanos marveled at his friend’s comment. It had gotten ugly. For all the wrong reasons. Random chance and brute serendipity had met up with prejudice, and the result was anything but pretty.
When he returned home, his mien was so despondent and his affect so maudlin that even his father could not help but to notice. With a resigned sigh, A’Lars grudgingly asked what was wrong.
When Thanos related the events on the walkway to his father, A’Lars merely shook his head. “You should have known better,” he said, and returned to his work.
Thanos decided then and there: He would venture outside only when absolutely necessary. There was no point to doing otherwise.
Years later, Thanos stood atop the MentorPlex, gazing out onto the sprawl of the Eternal City beneath him, out to the rolling foothills where, a decade past, he and Sintaa had sat and watched the hovering robots build the very edifice in which he now lived with his father. A’Lars had reserved the top of the MentorPlex for himself.
Of course.
Of course his father would want to look down on the rest of Titan, the way he looked down on his only son.
Thanos imagined he could espy the exact spot where he’d sat on that day, even though he knew that was a foolish conceit. Ten years had passed in the blink of an eye, and he had spent that time doing his level best to forget the childish ways of his past and move into his future.
He’d applied himself to his studies with a diligence and an intensity that even his father noted. He understood the complexities of physics and biology, astronomy and chemistry. He could identify stars and planets with a glance at the night sky, could manipulate energies to create astonishingly lifelike images that spoke and moved, their fidelity far beyond the crude holograms of Titan’s technology. He could scrutinize living tissue on the subcellular level, tweaking mitochondria and lysosomes to engender new life.
And he had done his best to forget Sui-San. His mind, when pressed into service, was capable of many things, and so he commanded himself to forget her.
But it was impossible. He could push her aside for weeks or months at a time, yet she always returned to him. He dreamed her face, enormous and pained and weeping. It was her face at the moment of his birth, he imagined. No one could remember the moment of birth, he knew, and yet with frightful regularity, he dreamed of it anyway, and was convinced it was a memory, not an invention of his subconscious.
Two years ago, he had finally uncovered proof positive that A’Lars had bribed Sintaa’s family into providing friendship for Thanos—living quarters in the much-sought-after MentorPlex upon its completion. A’Lars had said not a word when presented with the proof, but since then Thanos had not seen Sintaa, had spent most of his time at home, pursuing his endless studies.
His subsequent loneliness eventually overcame his reticence, and in those two years, he’d tried going out, being among his people. But he could not bear the expressions on people’s faces, the barely suppressed horror, the outright revulsion. His parents’ reaction to him had set the precedent. His decision from years ago was the right one.
But was he re
ally so monstrous? he wondered. Was he truly such a vile creature? Or was it just the perception of others?
A look in a mirror—reluctantly—confirmed it. Yes. Yes, he was.
And yet he wondered: Could it really be something as simple, as superficial, as the color of his skin and the raked-sand slant of his broad chin that cast such fear into them? Were the people of Titan—his people!—such cowards that they could be terrified by something literally skin-deep?
Titans were more sophisticated than to cleave to ancient superstitions, but they still associated purple with death, with misfortune, as though the photorefractive properties of a substance had anything at all to do with…
He sighed. It exhausted him just thinking about it.
He couldn’t believe it to be true. It had to be something else.
He knew he was… unusual. Appearance aside, his intellect cast him apart from others. With each day, he grew smarter and more cunning. He understood more and more, though he could not understand the fear of the others.
The disgust he sensed in A’Lars? Yes, he understood that. He was a wretched creature, he knew, and as he grew, he became only more threatening. His shoulders broadened. His muscles swelled. He was a brute, a genius intellect trapped in the overmuscled body of a laborer. He did not glide; he stomped. Even at his most cautious, he elbowed and shouldered people out of his way.
He’d long ago given up apologizing. No one was listening.
He was getting older. Soon he would need to make his way in the world, not above it. He would have to go out into the City as a citizen, as his own person. How could he do that when he was rejected at every turn?
In a rare moment of utter desperation, he confronted A’Lars with that very question, seeking an explanation, looking for some kernel of wisdom that had eluded him thus far, something he could exploit to change the hearts and minds of Titan. It came on a night when A’Lars approached Thanos in his room. It was late, and Thanos was exhausted, his eyes burning from long hours spent studying his own DNA, the double-helix holograms twisting and turning at his direction, offering no answers as to how he’d become such a creature.
Perhaps with a DNA sample from his mother…
Sitting at his desk, he slumped in his chair, then rested his weary forehead on the palm of one too-large hand. If his genius could not decode his own deviance, it was useless.
A’Lars, as always, entered without knocking or asking the home’s intelligence to announce him. His voice startled Thanos, who resisted the impulse to jump in surprise.
“I just wanted to remind you that I’ll be leaving for the Rakdor Crater in the morning,” A’Lars told him. “My geographical survey will have me away for three nights. Remember to—”
“Stay in the house,” Thanos grumbled. “Yes. I know. Stay inside as much as possible, lest the mere sight of me send a fatal shockwave through Titanian society. I’ve absorbed that lesson.”
“Your sarcasm is noted. And unappreciated.”
Thanos spun around in his chair. “They hate me, Father! They fear me! For nothing I’ve done! Nothing at all!”
As ever, A’Lars’s empathy was nonexistent. “Yes. And there is nothing you can do about that.”
Thanos groaned and stood, swinging his arms about aimlessly. “Why? What have I done?”
A’Lars crossed his arms over his chest and regarded his son coolly. “As you’ve already said: nothing. Every species in the universe has an instinctive fear of its predator.”
“Predator?” Thanos groaned again, in discontent, in anguish. “Whom have I preyed upon?” For a moment, the memory of his time at the hospital flickered. It was actually, he later learned, called a psychosylum, and it was not a place to heal injuries or wounds. His memory of it was as real and as alive as it had been in those instants. The synthetic blood, so slick and so real on his fists…
But A’Lars owned the psychosylum and the synthetics within who ran it. He’d covered up Thanos’s moment of childish violence. No one knew.
“You are intelligent,” his father said. “And your intelligence brings with it a remove, a distance from others. At an unconscious level, others pick up on this. They interpret it as ruthlessness. As a threat. Combined with your… appearance, they feel fear. And, inevitably, what they fear, they hate.”
His father said it all so matter-of-factly, so coldly, that for a moment Thanos thought that perhaps this was not so bad. But then the meaning of the words sank in, and his shoulders slumped as he realized exactly what his father was saying.
“Then there’s nothing I can do,” he said. “They hate me for no reason, so there is no logic I can apply, no rationale I can expound, that will change their minds.”
“No,” A’Lars said with firm finality. “Put it out of your mind. You are as you are, and the world is as the world is. You can change neither.”
“Then what am I to do with my life?” Thanos cried. “How am I to find my way if I am hated and feared at every turn?”
A’Lars stood silent and still for so long that Thanos wondered if he had at last stumped the great man. A savage satisfaction coursed through him, and his lips quirked into a grin.
But then A’Lars merely shrugged. “Every creature finds its way. Even dung has its purpose, Thanos. You will find yours.”
Before Thanos could respond, his father left, the door whispering shut behind, leaving Thanos alone with a useless, crooked smile and the certainty that his own father thought he was dung.
CHAPTER IV
SO HE STOOD ALONE ATOP THE MENTORPLEX, ATOP THE world. In the distance, robots glided and drifted, hauling titanium and aluminum sheets, grafting them to the central spine of what would be MentorPlex II, built in the remains of the Rakdor Crater. More living space for more people.
A tone sounded, and Thanos turned to the door in surprise. His father was gone, and everyone knew it; there was no reason for visitors.
The door camera showed Sintaa, shifting impatiently from foot to foot as he waited. His friend had grown more than fifteen centis. His hair was now long and sleek, spiked in front and on top, then falling to his shoulders in the back. He had an effortless ease about him, a sense of relaxation that Thanos envied.
“What are you doing here?” Thanos asked, thumbing the control that allowed him to speak to the outer corridor.
Sintaa glanced around until he found the camera, then looked straight into it. “What a ridiculous question. Especially for a genius. I’m here to see you.”
Thanos pursed his lips. “Go away,” he said, and thumbed off the camera.
A moment later, the door vibrated with impact and a rhythmic thumping. Sintaa, the barbarian, was actually striking the door with his fist. Thanos re-engaged the camera and watched in amazement.
“Let me in!” Sintaa shouted, barely audible through the door. “I won’t leave until you let me in, Thanos!”
Sintaa’s abrupt irrationality caused annoyance to war with concern within Thanos. After a few moments of the insistent pounding, Thanos relented and opened the door.
Standing in the doorframe, winded, his hair in disarray from his exertions, Sintaa managed a lopsided grin. “There!” he panted. “Was that so hard?” And when Thanos said nothing: “Now is the part where you invite me in.”
“Come in…?” It was more a question than an invitation, but Sintaa took it as a welcome and strode inside, smoothing back his hair along the nape of his neck as he did so.
“Thanks.”
The anteroom was large and spare, in the Titan style. Its walls curved gently from floor to ceiling, giving the sense of being enclosed in a large, comfortable egg. A massive picture window formed one wall, its glass curved and fitted with perfect precision. The furniture floated.
Sintaa picked a floating chair with a good view of the Eternal City and dropped into it. As programmed, a floating table glided into place before him.
Thanos knew that there were rituals when one received a guest in one’s home. He’d never performed th
ose rituals, nor had he been on the receiving end, but he had read about them. And so he sent one of his enhanced toddler-androids—now programmed to act as a servant—to the larder to fetch cakes and honeywater while Thanos stood, hands clasped behind his back, in silence. For his part, Sintaa sat comfortably, scrutinizing Thanos with an inscrutable grin.
“I thought—” he began, but Thanos stopped him with a raised hand.
“Custom dictates we wait for refreshment.”
Sintaa shrugged. A moment later, the android returned, bearing a tray of food and drink. Taking the tray, Thanos paused in the presence of his former friend. “Why have you come here, Sintaa? My father’s obligation to your family is complete.”
Sintaa’s expression soured. “Ever since you told him you knew about his deal with my parents, your father hasn’t let me see you. I tried a few times, but he always blocked me. He was either here or nearby or by the time I knew he wasn’t around, it was too late. So when I heard he would be gone for a few days, I came right away.”
Thanos placed the tray on the table and then sat opposite Sintaa. “Why?”
Sintaa chuckled and shook his head. “Because, you ugly purple cuss, I actually like you. You’re my friend. And it’s long past time for you to have more than one friend of your own. You live up here in isolation, trapped in your father’s titanium palace, and you don’t even know how to interact with people. So I’m going to lend you some of my friends, all right?”
“I don’t believe that is part of the deal with A’Lars.”
“To hell with A’Lars,” Sintaa said with pleasant satisfaction, as though he’d been waiting years to say exactly that and had just figured out how. “He never had a deal with me, do you understand? He had a deal with my parents. Everything here”—at this point, he gestured back and forth between them—“was real.”
