Flex (26 page)

O
scar’s
burliest bodyguard scrambled for his gun.

“
Pose!
” the muscleman yelled, and twirled on the balls of his toes to bring his deltoids into view. A visible force wave rippled out from his scalloped shoulder muscles, striking the guard in the forehead. The guard, kneeling, trembled as the bolt shivered through him. He looked at his own herculean physique, then back at the muscleman’s…

…and pressed his forehead against the ground in worship.

The muscleman looked both shocked and pleased by this development. “This,” he pronounced, “is
awesome
.”

Then he advanced across the office floor, striking a new pose with each step. The people behind him in the elevator lobby stood stunned with admiration.

“No fear, citizens,” he said, striding towards the table. He touched the two other guards on the foreheads; they shook with adulation. “I am taking only what I need. Some risks are necessary to build a body like mine. I have found the key to a perfect, healthy lifestyle.” He winked. “If you’re lucky, I may share it with you.”

The crowd sighed with happiness. Muscleman bowed, eating up their adulation.

Aliyah breathed shallowly. At first, Paul thought she felt the vomitous sickness the bodybuilder radiated – but then he realized she was mesmerized, her eyes tracking the muscleman’s every twitch. Oscar, his bodyguards, the people streaming in from the street; all bowed to this gnarled heap of muscles.

“Get back in the office,” Paul told her.

“He’s so
beautiful
.” She stroked her bed-weakened arms contemplatively. “Could I be strong like that, Daddy?”

Paul gagged on his spittle. The sickness intensified with each bicep Flex–

–
Flex
, he thought, his head whirling.
He’s juiced with Anathema’s Flex
–

Yet somehow, the muscleman
was
beautiful. In another place, the muscleman’d be a spray-tanned wad of brawn stuffed into an ill-fitting bikini bottom. Yet Paul felt new appreciations opening up inside him – understanding the sweat that went into bulking up those triceps, the fierce dedication to heaving lead weights, the asceticism it took to convert weakness into layers of strength. The muscleman was using Anathema’s Flex to force open a window into everyone’s soul, showing them his body
as he himself saw it
.

If we could only understand what people loved
–

The muscleman took Oscar’s sack of Flex. He weighed it in his palm.

“It doesn’t look to have nearly the punch of the stuff I just got.” He was playing to the crowd, drawing out the moment as if he thought it might never happen again. “But I’ve had worse. You have to have supplements to get this kind of body, you know. Creatine. Whey shakes. Scoops of glutamine. I spent a lotta time being low man in the gym. There’s not much respect for the weak in this world.” Businessmen and housewives alike took notes. “So I’ll eat
anything
to get ripped!”

He raised the full sack to his mouth, cabled jaws yawning.

Her next attack will kill 512 people
, Paul thought.
With Aliyah here…

Paul hurtled down the stairway, trying to stop the muscleman from gobbling the Flex. Maybe nothing would happen. Unlike this last batch, nothing
could
happen until Paul approved it.

Or maybe the Flex would explode when Anathema’s caged ’mancy clashed with his.

“Oh, no,” Valentine yelled. “You’re not mixing
that
Mentos with my Diet Coke!”

She was still in Mantis’ skin, but Valentine was back in charge. She flew across the room and smashed into the muscleman, sending Flex flying up like popcorn. The crowd shrieked at the open display of ’mancy; some fled, but others, outraged at Valentine harming their newly introduced idol, grappled her down.

The muscleman seemed dismayed. “Why would you try to fight me?” he asked, desperate to please. “I’m
strong
! And I’m kind! The strongest
and
kindest!”

He stomped. The building shook. Cracks shot down the walls, racing down from the ceiling to converge underneath his bare heel, rubble tumbling down around him.

“All that muscle gives you is more hit points.” Valentine shrugged off the passersby, then force-smashed Muscleman into the wall. Muscleman peeled himself out of the plaster, yanking an iron beam free – which, if you weren’t looking too carefully, looked like he ripped it out himself. But, as Paul saw, the beam sheared through at the exact instant the muscleman grabbed for it.

He waggled the beam back and forth, like some obscenely magnified orchestra conductor. Valentine circled him, her feet dangling in mid-air, ready to dodge.

Muscleman didn’t swing. He looked deer-in-the-headlights confused, uncertain what to do once people weren’t idolizing him, not wanting to hurt even this gas-masked freak.

Then his puglike face lit up with a smile. Sickening ’mancy flooded the room.

The roof collapsed.

Valentine fell sprawling as the roof sagged inward, steel beams shrieking as the fifty floors above them caved in, raining chunks of concrete down on the crowd.

The muscleman stepped in to meet the incoming debris. He raised his hands in a clean-and-jerk to meet the rubble, slapping his palms underneath it–

–and the collapsing ceiling stopped as he heaved upwards.

Muscles trembling, he appeared to hold up the entire building. The ceiling groaned under the strain, a jigsaw mass of rubble interlocking in a fantastic interplay to freeze in place. To anyone but Paul, it appeared the muscleman had shoved the ceiling back into a stable position, as opposed to dashing to where the collapse would have stopped naturally.

Paul wanted to applaud. It was a fake, of course. A dangerous fake. But a magnificent fake.

“
Go
!” Muscleman yelled to Valentine, who lay sprawled – unconscious? – underneath him. Paul realized Muscleman had positioned himself in a Superman pose, interposing himself between certain death and a helpless citizen. “
Save yourself! I’ll fix this!
”

This wasn’t real ’mancy, Paul realized. Just a sad man juiced with shitload of Flex – which was engineering coincidences to give the muscleman the illusion of superhuman feats.

Feats that required building-crumbling coincidences. Coincidences that were the obvious channel for the muscleman’s impending flux.

Paul scooped Aliyah up and weaved through the dazed crowd. They seemed paralyzed, wanting to watch their hero save the day – a significant chunk of the five hundred and twelve who’d die when the building collapsed. But there were louder shrieks from outside, and as Paul blinked in the sunshine, he looked for what had caused the real damage.

A Mack truck had careened out of control, slamming into the building. It had hit the wall when muscleman had stomped down – and caused the walls to crack just in time for him to grab an iron beam. Unlikely, yes, but Anathema’s Flex ensured the truck struck the building at its weakest point.

Paul signed in the air, activating his bureaucromancy; the cops arrived as soon as his fingers stopped moving. That, at least, he could do – but could his bureaucromancy stabilize a sagging building?

Another dull
boom
as the building tilted. He told Aliyah to stay here – was that safer? – and rushed inside, hoping against hope to fix this.

Muscleman found the ceiling sagging downward. “Flee!” he yelled again, looking more baffled by the moment. “I’ll hold the building until you’re safe!” Except he couldn’t. The Flex was draining away. When it was gone, Anathema’s flux would kill him, along with five hundred and eleven other people.

The muscleman strained against the ceiling, reassuring Valentine he’d set this right – as if all this would make sense if he lifted harder.

Paul felt a horrible pity for the man. He could have used the Flex to crush men’s skulls–

–but he’d wanted to be a hero.

Paul understood the temptation. A small man obsessed with being big. But the window the muscleman opened into his soul also showed Paul all the ways Muscleman’s body wasn’t quite up to snuff – his lats were underdeveloped, his posing too hesitant, his body fat a percentage point higher than it should be. He’d devoted his life to pumping iron and was
still
the mocking boy of the club.

He hadn’t given up, though. He’d believed if he just found the right supplement or technique, he’d break through… and people would admire him.

Those were the people Anathema preyed upon: the wannabes. The people who might have been ’mancers, had they been crazier. The sad bastards who never had a chance and yet never gave up.

He felt certain the ballroom dancers had been killed by some left-footed sad sack. Some innocent person who would have given anything to twirl beneath the stars in top hat and tails.

Anathema had turned their dreams to death. Just like the kid who’d burned his apartment. Just like that nebbish who’d shot up Gunza’s thugs. Just like the flux blowback had obliterated all of Anathema’s other victims, leaving no witnesses for the people who had no friends.

I’m going to beat you, Anathema,
he thought.
And when I do, I’ll crush your dreams like you crushed theirs
.

An ominous juddering reminded Paul just who might get crushed.

“Vuh –
Mantis
!” he yelled, shaking Valentine back to consciousness. “Time to give me a hand!”

“Save yourself, citizen!” the muscleman shouted. “I’ll–”

“You’re going to die.” Paul scavenged underneath the desk for forms. “You have been given Flex. Do you know what that is?”

The muscleman’s face, dark with blood, drained to a mottled paleness. Of course he knew. Everyone knew what Flex was and how Anathema was using it.

“Right now, you are saturated with flux – with bad luck.” Paul patted his pockets for a pen. “
Do not think
. Keep your mind clear. Pretend you’re doing a set of reps. Can you do that?”

“I… I think so… I feel sick…”

“That’s the flux.”
When that flux pours out, the building will collapse
. “The good news is, you have a lot of Flex to burn.”
So much I’m choking back bile
. “You can stabilize this. But you have to…”

Paul concentrated on the forms, trying to think how he’d sign over responsibility. Would it be a lien? A power of attorney? An assumption of debt? He scrawled boxes on the form, debating all the legal ramifications of handing over bad luck.

“…you have to concentrate on
fixing
this,” Paul continued. “Not on being a hero. You’re trying to impress us – you already have. You didn’t kill anyone with your power. That makes you a good guy.”

“I
am
a good guy.”

“What’s your name?”

“Moishe.”

“Good, Moishe.” He scrawled another name on the contract, which blossomed into typewritten letters. “I need you to sign this.”

The muscleman looked up at his quivering biceps, still caught in the illusion of holding up the building. Paul gave him the look he used to give underage kids who thought pushing their beer underneath the seat meant he wouldn’t smell it on their breath.

“That’s all show. You know that. Now you’ll help for real. You’re gonna be the first person to
not
trigger Anathema’s terror. That’s a real hero, Moishe. Let go and sign this.”

Moishe lowered his hands slowly, afraid the sagging ceiling would collapse onto him. And the mass of bent lights and rebar
was
creaking, settling, seeking a way to cave in – but five hundred pounds of pressing wouldn’t make a difference.

“What will this do?”

Paul took a deep breath, about to belly-flop into the deep end. “It’ll transfer your bad luck to me.”

Moishe took the pen from Paul’s hand to sign the contract. His muscles began to glow a deep green – a jungled hue, like moonlight filtered through tree leaves. Then it rose off him in a wave and arced into Paul.

Paul clamped his hands to his forehead. It squeezed tight, threatening to burst him like a piñata. The pain was like having his still-beating heart shoved into a grinder…

He could not imagine any worst-case scenarios, because once he did, they would happen. And kill them all.

Valentine staggered to her feet. “What do we do, Paul?”

“He’s got… enough juice left.” Each word was a razor blade cutting his tongue. “Help him stabilize the building. Have everything… collapse so it locks together …”

“We can do that.” Behind her gas mask, Paul saw her real eye narrow. “We can – yeah. All it takes is a fun time. Hey, muscles – ready to play a minigame?”

Bright pulsing circles appeared on the wreckage, irising down into targets. “Hit them hard, and they’ll settle this building into a nice, stable configuration.”

Moishe cracked his knuckles as Valentine started a timer countdown. Paul ran for the door, knowing he couldn’t stay. The slightest doubt would squirm out to solidify, dooming them all.

He staggered out to the street as fire engines pulled up, people flooding out through the doors, the firm hand of state-sponsored guardians stopping the crowd from panicking.

The flux pressed in around him, battering at him. He had to burn this fatal load off in stages – break a leg, lose an eye, chip away incrementally. Otherwise, it’d end his life as he knew it…

Kit clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“
Bubeleh
!” he cried, pulling Paul into an embrace. “I owe you a lifetime’s supply of donuts. I’ve been so worried. I should have known you’d be on the scene…”

He hasn’t figured out I’m a ’mancer, has he?

The flux sensed that panic, squirmed through it–

Kit’s eyes fell to the contract still clutched in Paul’s hand, the one Moishe signed. It glowed with the aftermath of the bargain he’d made. The letters jittered on the paper, finalizing the flux transfer to Paul Tsabo, bureaucromancer.

Kit’s arms stiffened around Paul, turning a hug into a grapple. “You,” he whispered, voice hoarse with betrayal. “You – you’re
sick
.”

Oh, yeah
, Paul thought.
That’ll end my life as I know it.