Flex (4 page)

“So… they’re not rejecting her because this is ’mancy?”

“Samaritan Mutual has to cover any injury, regardless of source. They just have to think it’s a worthy treatment.”

Imani sighed with relief. “Then make her worthy, Paul.”

She squeezed the back of Paul’s neck affectionately – a cruel touch that reminded him of the intimacy they’d once shared – before withdrawing.

Paul slumped by Aliyah’s bed, trembling with rage. He knew Imani was right: he needed to help Aliyah. Aliyah’s treatments would probably cost half a million before this was done; ’mancy or no, it’d take all his skills to wrestle that kind of funding out of Samaritan. He had to
focus
.

But… someone had burned his daughter. On
purpose
. Back when he’d thought Aliyah’s pain had been an accident, Paul had wished that God had existed, just so he could punch Him in the face. Now someone was responsible – if Kit thought the fire had been started by a ’mancer, then it was a ’mancer – and Paul’s job was hunting down evidence of ’mancy.

He couldn’t abandon Aliyah to chase a criminal, that would be irresponsible, but… was there a way he could use bureaucromancy to find this bastard? Or would his flux backfire and destroy the evidence that might help track this murderer down?

Paul had no clue. He knew how to
find
’mancers, not how to
be
one…

“…Daddy?”

It was the first time she’d spoken since the fire. Her breath was paper-thin, her voice thick in her misshapen mouth.

“Yeah, love?”

“…Is it true, what Mommy said?”

Oh, God
. What could he tell her? That he’d lost faith after killing the illustromancer? That he’d taken a shit job as penance, and now she might be burned forever, thanks to Daddy’s bad choices?

“What did Mommy say?”

“That a ’mancer burned me.”

He thought of the Beast in his office. He couldn’t control his magic. If he pushed through approval for Aliyah’s work, her anesthesia might malfunction. Maybe Aliyah’s funding would rob the medicine from a hundred sick toddlers. Experimenting with lives at stake was irresponsible, reckless, mad.

It was the only way to save her.

“Yes, sweetie.” He squeezed her toes. “A ’mancer burned you.”

“They’re bad.” Her eyes were cold and clear. “All the ’mancers. Bad men.”

“Yes,” he agreed, settling into the role. “Yes, they are.”

O
n the subway
, riding to work, Paul went over the police reports one more time. It had been a risk, extracting the information – he’d sat in his hotel room, scribbling information requests on the Herald Square complimentary notepads until they’d expanded into full case files. He watched, delighted, as report by report, his ’mancy brought him everything the government knew about the person who’d set his home on fire.

Then the flux had hit, and the ceiling collapsed on him. Not the whole ceiling, just a posterboard-sized chunk of termite-infested plaster, but enough to remind Paul that maybe he shouldn’t fuck around.

But he hadn’t been able to squash his need to read up on the person who’d hurt Aliyah. Paul reread the reports on the commute over to Samaritan, double-checking that he hadn’t missed anything.

He hadn’t. The information was just terrifyingly incomplete.

Paul ignored the pair of overly affectionate college students squeezing into the subway seat next to him and checked the facts again: two people had burned to death when that gas main had exploded – some young kid brimming with Flex, and the unlucky business executive who’d bedded him. Someone had fed that poor college kid Flex until the world had exploded.

Four people had died of brain aneurysms when a forty-six year-old stockbroker, desperate to see her senile mother speak again, had OD’d on Flex. The nurses on the old-age ward claimed the mother had jolted upright, wailing in tongues about the anathema of civilization collapsing – then her eyes bled. Then her daughter’s eyes bled. When two orderlies moved in to help, all four of them stroked out.

Eight people in a Drake’s Cakes plant died when an obese man on Flex, desperate to have the snack cakes he’d been starving for since his favorite sweets producer went bankrupt, burst in and made a plaintive plea for the good old days. By an astounding coincidence, seven of the plant’s employees had been ex-employees of the now-defunct snack cake manufacturer, and each recalled working there as the happiest days of their lives. As their foremen protested, all eight men set out to replicate the recipe – but in retooling the equipment, a freak accident drowned them in a tide of boiling corn syrup.

Sixteen people waiting in a plastic surgeon’s office had died of a rare allergic reaction to anesthesia when a one-in-a-million canister leak hissed sevoflurane into the air conditioning. Which of the patients had overdosed on Flex had yet to be determined, but nobody doubted that Anathema had struck again.

“Anathema” was merely a code name, a placeholder designation stolen from a weird word the babbling victims at the old-age home had been unable to stop repeating as they died. The only people who’d had direct contact with Anathema had been Anathema’s victims, none of whom had survived to tell the tale. Paul had scoured every file from the FBI, the NYPD, and SMASH, hunting for possible motivations: all anyone knew for certain was that a ’mancer was luring people to their deaths by feeding massive amounts of Flex to desperate people. Was Anathema white? Gay? Indonesian? Genderqueer?

Nobody knew. Not one living soul had seen him, her, or it.

The only thing people
were
certain of was that if Anathema was not stopped, thirty-two more people would die a strange and hideous death in the next few days. Each of these horrific catastrophes had killed twice the number of the one before. Which was a terrifying thought, as ’mancers’ obsessions were normally self-contained: for all their power, they were usually dangerous only by accident, happy to interact with their own world. Most died to their own flux blowback.

But when a ‘mancer set out to kill as part of his obsession…

Paul crumpled the report angrily; the college kids stopped nuzzling each others’ necks to give him a puzzled look. He ignored them. Aliyah had been scarred
on purpose
. All her future pain, traceable to one person.

He squeezed his metal ankle absently. He’d get Aliyah her reconstructive surgery so that she’d never endure the pain of people giving her pity-filled looks on crowded subways. But he also wanted to punish the man who’d inflicted her anguish. Two separate goals, each insanely dangerous – but skimming the case files, Paul thought he might have figured out a way to have one hand wash the other. Revenge and healing, wrapped in one dangerous little package.

The question is, could he trust his boss Kit to help him?

Paul had pulled up Samaritan’s case files as part of his research, and had discovered one unsettling fact: Kit had to know Aliyah’s injury was from a terrorist attack. Kit had investigated Paul’s apartment personally, as well as the other attack sites. And Kit was far from dumb.

So why hadn’t Kit told Paul about the Flex overdoses when Kit had visited Aliyah at the hospital? Why had Kit kept Paul purposely ignorant?

Come to think of it, Kit had only visited a few times. Odd behavior for a best friend. Odder still for Aliyah’s godfather.

What on Earth was Kit hiding?

A realization: Paul could trace Kit’s movements if he had to. Each of Kit’s E-ZPass toll payments left a bureaucratic record somewhere, Kit’s expense reports marked where Kit had eaten his allotted meals, Kit’s credit card records would reveal where Kit had stopped to fill up on gas…

The FBI reports uncurled beneath his fingertips, the letters on the page marching like ants, helpfully reforming into authorization request forms at Samaritan Mutual.

Paul wadded the report tight again. He’d always been a quick reader, reading people’s emails over their shoulders before he realized what he was doing – his eyes absorbing the words before his conscious mind could shut it down. ’Mancy was like that: reflexive, unconscious.

Had anyone on the subway seen the newspaper change? Thankfully, the smooching couple was self-absorbed, and everyone else was staring down at their phones. Paul looked up at the advertisements lining the ceiling, featuring teams of black-armored SMASH agents: “
Physics: not just a good idea, it’s the law. Report all ’mancy! Call 1-800-SMASHEM!
”

There were a hundred mundanes on this car. If one person saw him doing ’mancy, SMASH would haul him to the Refactor.

No. He had to research in the safety of his office. His plan was good, he thought, but… he was too inexperienced. This plan needed a real ’mancer.

That’s why he planned to find a mentor.

He got off at the next stop, butterflies vomiting in his stomach. And yet for all his nervousness, his arrival was somehow reassuring: he was at Samaritan again, the safe place Paul always retreated to when everything went wrong.

As Paul walked through the lobby, he ached to pretend nothing had happened, to spend the day completing forms. That was how he relaxed; sometimes, he’d ask his co-workers if they had anything they wanted filled out. Samaritan’s forms were notoriously impenetrable; it was satisfying, resolving the departments’ conflicting requirements into one perfect claim.

The only forms he’d be signing today would be magical ones.

Samaritan Mutual’s Claims Adjustment department had all the charm of a community college: rows of battered industrial desks from the 1960s, flickering fluorescents, permanently grimed tile floors. People walked back and forth to talk to each other, since Samaritan’s CEO, Lawrence Payne, infamously disdained email. “Email makes men waste time writing thoughts that should be spoken,” he claimed – and so most forms were still filled out with typewriters, and the phones never stopped ringing.

The office was Payne-free today, which made Paul grateful. Mr. Payne, an octogenarian ex-Marine, descended periodically from his penthouse suite to sit in on random calls. He called them his “snap inspections”, keeping the office in a tizzy of busywork.

Still, all conversation came to a stop as Paul pushed his way through the frosted glass doors. His co-workers’ faces turned towards him like flowers towards the sun, angling to offer him pity.

Please, don’t
, he thought. He envisioned himself as an ocean wave, moving inexorably toward the shore. If anyone interrupted him, he’d smash against them in a spray of salt tears. Aliyah filled his every waking hour with regret, a regret that threatened to unman him; he needed to ride this swell of hatred, scouring grief with vengeance.

Kit intercepted Paul, ushering him into his office, closing the door behind them. “Imani said you might show today.”

Kit was an elderly New York widower in a rumpled suit and hat – a man who looked perfectly at ease sharking chess games with the other old Jews down under the arch. Under Kit’s cool gaze, Paul never felt crippled; he felt like a man with problems – a small distinction, but invaluable to an amputee like Paul.

“Let’s see if you put your money where your mouth is.” Paul opened up the greasy donut box that invariably rested on Kit’s desk, feigning jocularity.

Sure enough, there was a lonely cruller buried among the sugar-coated and glazed donuts. Paul lifted it out, took a healthy bite.

“I rather think I put my money where
your
mouth is,” Kit said, matching Paul’s pseudo-friendly wariness. “I only buy crullers on days I know you’re showing up. No one else here will eat them, which is proof of their good judgment. Only you would covet these dry, éclair-shaped wannabes, flavorless unless dunked in a superior material… Evidence of a deep character defect…”

Kit maintained that the donut a man chose told you much about his personality, often going off on tangents about the borderline sociopathy of the Boston Kreme aficionado, which led many at the office to jokingly call Kit “The Dunkinmancer.”

“So how’d you know the fire was ’mancy, Kit?”

Kit didn’t play the bullshit game of saying
Oh, I didn’t
not
mention the case to you
. Instead, he crossed his arms and gave Paul an unapologetic stare, as if to acknowledge
Yes, kid, I played you
.

“I was sent to investigate because we thought it was arson. I was motivated because of Aliyah. And when I met the boyfriend of the woman who’d died in the fire, he seemed shocked that he’d cheated on her. He told me how everything had fallen into place with unbelievable coincidences – an old flame who showed up when he’d been drinking, an apartment door left unlocked at the right time, the usual magical horror show. So I correlated taxi GPS timestamps from the art show she’d attended, then fished
this
out from underneath the driver’s seat.” He produced a shattered black opal from his vest pocket. “
Et voilà
. Proof of another physics-bending menace to society.”

Kit’s work never failed to impress. Paul tipped his coffee to Kit in salute. “Due diligence.”

“I try twice as hard and it takes me four times as long to find those goddamned ’mancers,” Kit said. “You? You’re a magical dowsing rod. If every cop had your instincts, we’d clean the town of these maniacs.”

Paul winced. Kit’s loathing of ’mancers had been a constant undertow of discomfort in an otherwise comfortable friendship. But Kit’s hatred was a common failing.

“If I’m so good,” Paul asked, “why’d you hide the case from me?”

Kit blew air through pursed lips. “…let’s talk about your paperwork, kid.”

What did Kit know?
Paul stiffened. If Paul left evidence of his ’mancy at the apartment, Kit would have found it.

“I haven’t been here in two weeks, Kit,” Paul said, keeping a lean smile plastered to his face. “I haven’t done any paperwork.”

“That’s… not quite true. Why don’t we go to your office?”

Where the Beast lives.

’Mancy had a
feel
to it. Paul had chased magic for so long, he could sense a ’mancer’s presence. Kit had never quite gotten the knack of ’mancy – possibly because he despised its existence – but he wasn’t prone to overlooking evidence, either.

Kit steered Paul across the hallway to Paul’s office. He fumbled out a key to unlock the frosted glass door with “Paul Tsabo” stenciled on the front. Kit looked harried, jerking his head from side to side as if Mr Payne might interrupt at any moment.

Paul heard papers rustling inside. Kit knew. He
had
to know. He was just applying pressure to see if Paul would admit to his crimes – and if Kit knew, then this would be the last stop before Kit turned Paul into SMASH, sent him off to be Refactored and brain-wiped.

Kit was toying with him. Had to be.

Should he instruct the Beast to attack Kit when the door opened?
Could
he? He could cut Kit’s electricity off, destroy his credit line – but could the Beast
murder
?

Could
Paul
murder?

“Look, Paul,” Kit said. “You didn’t get the time off.”

“You said I had caregiver leave to take care of Aliyah.”

“I said you could
have
caregiver leave. Come on, bubeleh, this is Samaritan Mutual – you think they’d give you unscheduled days off, even for a child as sick as Aliyah? No, we covered for you.”

Kit unlocked the door. Paul braced himself for the blizzard of paperwork that would come flying out, Kit’s cry of horror as he was engulfed in a whirlwind of claims forms–

But no. The door swung open to reveal Paul’s office: a cramped space with statute books lining the walls, a gray IBM computer with a sputtering Internet connection, piles of computer printouts. The Beast lay dormant across the shelves, sleeping piled in black plastic trays.

Yet they weren’t
his
piles. Paul stacked his forms to crisp perfection – a ritual to feed the Beast. Someone had replaced his stacks with
heaps
.

He picked up a few forms, marked with angry red errors. His signature was on the bottom… or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Kit wrung his hat. “…we’ve been doing your work for you.”

Paul was stunned. Paperwork took up a disproportionate part of Paul’s day, but he still had to leave the office to investigate crumbled buildings, crashed cars, vandalized shipments. His co-workers had all taken extra shifts to cover for him.

“Seventeen cases,” Kit admitted. “Everyone pitched in so you could look after Aliyah. So if a customer thinks you’re an Asian woman, just run with it, okay?”