Flex (19 page)

T
wo hundred and fifty-six
.

That’s how many people
should
have died in the shootout, Anathema thought. She’d carefully architected the progressions, the deaths doubling with each incident, building up to thousands killed with each dosage.

And she’d done everything right, hadn’t she? She’d found the perfect sacrificial lamb. She’d fed him the special Flex, which should have honed that fine obsession. Once he’d tasted blood, he should have put bullets through brains until his ammo ran dry.

Yet somehow, the rulemancer had sapped her target’s will.

Anathema flattened her palms against her thighs to calm herself, sitting cross-legged before the crackling bonfire. She inhaled warm summer air through her nostrils, the wind infused with animal shit; she exhaled, and felt the stars wheel above her.

The tall grass stretched out all around her, the bonfire made in a small, flattened path of a vast field never once cut by human hands. The night rustled with the sound of beasts making their way across the savannah.

She wanted to hunt. To fill her belly with bleeding meat. Yet even here, in her cave-that-was-the-world, she could smell the rulemancer’s stink. His desires, brimming with inked letters and printed contracts, shrank her refuge’s boundaries; did he even know he was doing it? Her world shrank all the same, its borders retreating like a lion before the whip.

It was unfair. The rulemancer had the whole city dancing to his tune. She’d grown up strangled by all the restrictions the rulemancer loved: tennis’s senseless scoring patterns, court-mandated therapy, inheritance taxes. All that structure had made her dull, reliant. She’d barely had the wits to kill her own parents.

She’d birthed ’mancers to
fight
the shape of the world, not enforce it. How could she have spawned such a monstrosity?

And since
that
gestation had spiraled out of control, what else didn’t she understand?

Anathema pushed the thought away, gripped her spear. Her harvest glittered at the darkness’s edge, a blazing firefly green.
That
was something she could never have done back when others called her Bethany. Nor could she have stalked great beasts, shoving spears into the hearts of lions.

What she knew was that policemen and gardeners and garbage men were extensions of his will, carrying the rulemancer’s influence to the heart of her domain. And when she felt his inflexible orders surrounding her, she felt frail as a library-loving teen, tranked to the gills on sadness-dampening medications, as if all this wildness she’d created was just some way of acting out.

She slashed her forearms, smearing blood all over herself.
Acting out
. That was rulemancer terminology, using words to cage emotions. Wild beasts do not think about acting out.

Wild beasts
acted
.

She charged into the veldt, spear held high, knowing tonight she would find the most dangerous animal she could envision. It would try to kill her, and if she wasted a single thought on
acting out
or
self-harm
or
dissociative disorder
, the beast would devour her rebellious, stupid brains.

In this way, Anathema would burn the fetters that restrained her.

If she survived – and she always had – then she would hunt down this rulemancer. Perhaps she had created him. It didn’t matter. He irritated her. Did anyone need any more reason than that to swat a fly?

She would hunt, and she would feast, then hunt again. And when she was done, she would peel the flesh from the rulemancer’s bones and wear him as a coat.

W
hen he’d been held
hostage, Paul had worried: what if he flinched when he saw Aliyah?

He’d tried to remember Aliyah’s burnt face, but that had seemed like a betrayal of the promise he’d made that one day she would be whole again. So instead, he’d envisioned her old, unscarred face… And now, as he was escorted to meet Aliyah for the first time in two weeks, he hoped he wouldn’t be shocked by her half-melted eyelids.

Then he saw her, and she was so beautiful, he wept.

The blisters had turned to scabs and scar tissue knotted across her body. She was wrapped in bandages still, to keep the small patches of healthy skin safe just in case by some miracle the plastic surgeries got approved.

But she was, the doctors had told him, safe enough to hug.

After she’d embraced him, she held out a paper chain of colorful cardboard crudely taped together.

“Aunt Vallumtime said if I made a link every day you were away, you’d come back.”

She draped the chain around his neck, a hero’s welcome. The press snapped photos from a discreet distance, held back by a row of nurses; Paul loathed them, but at this point, you either let the reporters in or they kicked the door down.

“I’ll always come back for you,” he promised, smelling her little-girl smell, locking away this moment so he’d always carry it with him.

“…did you kill him?” she whispered. “Did you kill the ’mancer who hurt me?”

I didn’t shoot myself, no
. Then he remembered: he’d told the police Gunza was a ’mancer.

“…no. Not yet.”

“That’s what Vallumtime told me. But he did ’mancy.” She ran her fingertips along the furrow the buzzsects had left in his forearm. She smeared his blood like fingerpaint. “And he hurt you. Did you kill him?”

“He’s dead, Aliyah.”

She clasped his hands in hers, pressing them against her forehead. For a moment, Paul thought she was praying, then realized she was crying, for the first time since Gunza had taken him.

Aliyah had always hated crying. Even as a baby, she’d never wailed; she’d just given aggravated little hiccups. Her secrecy was genetic, a gift from her mother.

Paul clutched her hands. And when she was done, she gave him a shy and mischievous grin, as if to tell Paul she’d never admit this moment had happened.

“We can both sleep now,” she said, then hugged him like she would never let him go.

W
hen Aliyah had passed
out and the press had been chased away, Imani and David tiptoed in.

Paul felt a swell of self-loathing at the sight of his ex-wife. Yes, he was the hero of the day, the man who’d killed a ’mancer… but he was also forced to totter around on crutches until they could fit him for a new foot.

He never felt more like a cripple than when Imani looked at him. Except she looked lessened now, weakened. She looked carved by disappointment, her beautiful face harrowed by grief.

She began to say hello – but her politician boyfriend, David, moved to intercept him. Paul hid his embarrassing left arm behind his back; he forever had to wrap it in gauze, the graze left by the buzzsects never healing. It was like having a goddamned maxipad strapped to your arm.

“Glad to have you back, sir!” David said, pumping his hand. Paul had known David could turn on the charm when he had to – but as the ex-husband, he’d never experienced it personally. Paul was glad to see his “hero of the day” aura winning out.

“Good to see you, Paul,” Imani said – not quite frosty, but a definite nip of autumn. Which perplexed Paul:
When I was on the force, you begged me to take risks
.

“How’s she
really
been doing?” Paul asked, squeezing Aliyah’s toe. She slept deeply, the hours of photo ops having taken their toll.

Imani squeezed Aliyah’s other toe, a joint parental show of affection. “She never stopped asking about you. Kept acting as though she could trick us into saying you’d be all right, you’d come home.”

“She likes knowing what the rules are…”

“…so she can break every last one,” Imani finished. Her grin warmed a little, then she bowed her head. “I couldn’t promise her you’d come back.”

“No.” Paul realized the awful position he’d put Imani in. “Of course you couldn’t.”

“I mean… It’s good you’re back on your game,” Imani continued, blushing. “It’s rare anyone survives a one-on-one encounter with one ’mancer, let alone two. I never told Aliyah, but… I thought that painting bitch had taken your leg, and the dealer would take the rest of you.”

David had stepped away discreetly to examine the television. Imani kept talking, the words spilling out like water from a cracked water cooler.

“But when we had Aliyah, you’d been off the beat for years. You’d given up. And if I’d thought… you know, you were…”

“…going to put myself in danger?”

“…then maybe, you know, things would have been different.”

At first, Paul believed Imani regretted divorcing him, a satisfying thought:
Oh, you would have stuck around if you knew I’d face down ’mancers? What if I
was
one?

But then he heard what she was really saying:

If I’d known you were headed back into the line of fire, I wouldn’t have had Aliyah
.

That idea knotted in Paul’s chest like a heart attack. They’d agreed to have a child for the same dumb reason married couples had for generations:
Maybe the baby would bring us closer together
. Of course, it hadn’t. Aliyah had consumed the last of their romance, externalizing all their love so it sat in one adorable, rebellious ball between them.

Now he realized: she’d had a child with him because Paul had been
safe
. Like a neutered cat who didn’t try to get out any more.

“Why
now
?” Imani asked. “You’re excited about work again. That’s good. But why
now
?”

“Because there’s someone who hurts little girls to make a point?”
And because
, he thought with a shameful teenaged horniness,
I get to do magic to stop him
.

“Something happened when your apartment caught fire.” Imani narrowed her eyes. “It’s made you driven. Reckless. What happened in there?”

“Nothing happened, Imani. This was what you wanted me to be, wasn’t it? Driven?”

“I wanted you
career
-driven. Not chained to a radiator and shot in the
head
!”

“I–”

“I’m not lying for you anymore, Paul. If you get kidnapped again and Aliyah asks me where you are, next time I’ll tell her: Daddy’s out committing suicide. And I don’t know why you–”

“–a word with you, Paul?”

David squeezed his shoulder.

Paul did not slap David’s hand away. If he did, he’d start punching David in his good-looking politician’s ambitious little weaselface, and if that happened, then he’d keep punching until his knuckles hit the back of David’s skull.

Imani tucked her hands in her armpits, plainly furious she’d let her ex-husband under her skin again. The grateful look she gave David for defusing the argument made Paul feel even more inadequate.

“Now’s not a good time, David.” Paul wrestled his crutches up underneath him, retreating.

“I understand that.” David was so agreeable, he’d probably have let Paul pop him one. “I just wanted to suggest perhaps you should hold a press conference.”

“I let them in here. That’s enough.”

“It really isn’t.” And Paul almost did punch David then, because David’s sharp
I-know-politics-better-than-you
tone was like rubbing a salt-rimmed margarita against a cold sore.

“You know Anathema’s next attack will kill two hundred and fifty-six people,” David said.

“Five hundred and twelve.”

“Not unless there’s been another assault we’re unaware of,” David laughed nervously.

Paul said nothing. He’d felt Anathema’s hand in the attack on Gunza’s stronghold. It must have been her; who else could have made that Flex? And though forty-two people had been shot in the apartment complex battle, Paul had the nagging feeling it would have been far worse without him…

“Regardless, Anathema’s still killing people,” David continued. “Last night, eight people were murdered on suspicion of ’mancy. Other people are dying because the 911 lines are overloaded. Legitimate calls are crowded out by panicky people reporting ’mancers because they saw pigeons acting weird. And why not? Anything could be ’mancy. We don’t even know what kind of ’mancer Anathema is. Eventually, a riot will break out, and then thousands will get hurt.”

“That’s terrible. But what do you want me to do?”

“You’ve survived not one ’mancer assault, but two, a modern record. It’d be a help to the city, calming the waters, if you just told the reporters that you think Anathema will be caught soon.”

“And
will
he?”

“If the mayor had any good news to report, any leads at all,” David asked, “do you think we’d be asking you for PR?”

That news sank in. Paul’s stomach squirmed.

“The good news is,” David continued, “we’ve gotten some federal funding to help the victims of Anathema’s ’mancy. I’ve asked Imani; with your permission, we’ll name the fund after Aliyah.”

Paul tensed. His ’mancy should be fixing his daughter’s face, not boosting the career of the man who’d cuckolded him.

“…How much will she get?” Paul asked.

“Donations have been pouring in. As the first injured, and your daughter, Imani thinks we might get enough to repair her face.”

“That’s good.” Paul felt sick. He could help his daughter but only by pretending the government was competent. He’d do it, of course – he’d swallow any indignity for Aliyah – but that didn’t mean he had to endure David for longer than he had to. He jabbed his crutches against the hospital floor, hopping away.

David ambled alongside, oblivious to how insulting his easy gait was to a man lacking a foot. “There’s a fundraising dinner next Saturday. We can sit you next to the mayor. But publicity has a short half-life, Paul – like Flex. If you don’t use it, it drains away.”

Paul stumbled into the elevator. “That’s not the way Flex works.”

“Tell that to the press, not me.”

O
n the way
to his office, Paul regretted not getting a temporary wheelchair. But being left with one leg was bad enough. He would not suffer the indignity of having people push him around.

Though after heaving himself out of the hospital, into a taxi, and through Samaritan Mutual’s lobby, Paul was reconsidering.

He slumped against a desk, taking a moment to appreciate Samaritan’s darkened offices. Offices after closing hours always had a pleasant feeling of camaraderie; anyone on the night shift was your brother. You enjoyed the low-key dimmed lights, the lack of phone calls, the way you could show up in a ragged T-shirt because it was 10pm on a Friday night and you were here; your mere presence was all you needed to impress.

Not that Paul ever dressed down. He
liked
suits. And crisp ties. They were armor for the civilized man. At best, he’d roll up his sleeves, and that only because it looked totally badass.

Only a badass could track down Anathema.

The good news was, bureaucracy excelled at finding overlooked things. If you were devoted and thorough, you could knit together enough leads to topple a President.

…which, he thought, frowning, was the flaw in his ’mancy. Valentine’s magic was flashy – the world now knew the woman who’d brought down the SMASH team was the videogamemancer who’d unleashed the rain of frogs – but once cast, you couldn’t trace it back to her.

Whereas when Paul had gotten the home to cook Flex, he’d ’manced it at a sheriff’s auction, put it in someone else’s name, transferred funds to a forged checking account to pay for it. But if someone like Kit dug in, Paul’s name would turn up somewhere.

That was bad for Paul.

Paul would be worse for Anathema.

Paul eyed the paper taped to his office door. An exterminator’s notice, listing every kind of infestation that could take place in New York – right down to “mealworms” and “deer ticks” – then certifying there was no evidence of vermin.

A plastic Mickey Mouse doll sat on Paul’s desk. It burst into a stiff, arm-flailing rendition of “M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E” at Paul’s entrance. Taped to it was a note from Kit:
Told you there were rats
.

Paul plopped into his chair. He had plenty of work to do… but it was good to be back in his comfort zone.

His file cabinets cracked open. The tops of forms poked out shyly.

“Hello, lads,” Paul said, smiling – and the papers leapt out, marching around him in a flapping parade, doing fluttering dances at his return. Then they slid back into their drawers, jittering in anticipation.

Paul pulled open one of two special drawers, the one that would be locked if anyone but him tugged the handle. This was the drawer that contained information – he could reach in and pull out records from anywhere, FBI reports, loan payments, corporate finance records. The first drawer worked as long as he could fill out the internal requests contained in the
other
special drawer, the one that provided him with blank copies of every printed form ever made.

Now he flipped through the request chain, pulling up police reports. Anathema’s Flex bombs hadn’t hit the same place twice. She–

Paul stopped. Something was lacking.

“Oh, yeah,” he muttered, then turned on the radio. NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” flowed into the office. Ridiculous, perhaps, for a bureaucromancer to groove so hard to the thug life… but to hunt Anathema, he’d have to be a dangerous motherfucker who raises hell.

Paul bobbed his head as his paperwork assistants retrieved the SMASH files. Sure enough, Anathema had struck twice while Gunza held him:

Sixty-four people working at an Internet travel agency had died when a wannabe pilot with 20/100 vision had been the only one available on a small prop jet after both pilots had been struck blind. It had been his deepest dream, his wife had said, to fly a real plane… which he did magnificently, for approximately twelve minutes, before both wings sheared off, causing the plane to plow through the roof of the travel agency’s office.