Flex (23 page)

Paul had seen Valentine defending them against a crazed Paleomancer. But all Aliyah had seen was deadly magic that threatened to spiral out of control.

There was only one way to convince Aliyah ’mancers could be good guys.

“Sweetie,” he said gently. “Do you realize Daddy’s a ‘mancer, too?”

Aliyah’s eyes widened. She looked to Valentine as if searching for confirmation, then stared at her father as if trying to bring him into focus. He smiled, trying to tell her that yes, she’d heard him right, and everything was the same as always.

She leapt off his lap, heading for the door.

“
NO
!” she screamed, the terrible shriek of butchered pigs. “
NO! NOOOO! NOOOOOO!
” He snatched her back, wrestling her, and that was terrible, too; she fought with all her strength and no fear of hurting him, giving him no choice but to hurt her back.

And still she fought, seeking escape. “
NOOOOO!
”

He couldn’t restrain her forever. If she got loose, she was faster – and where would she go? Out into traffic? Picked up by some child molester? Lost in New York, with no one to help her?

…off to tell SMASH what her Daddy really is?
asked a hateful voice.

It was the longest and hardest battle of Paul’s life, wrangling his beloved daughter into that bathroom. He pushed with his good leg, hauling both across the carpet, fighting unfairly with police training.

As he shoved her in the bathroom, Nintendo and all, Aliyah sobbed. “I want Mommy!” she yelled, as if her words could change hard reality. “I want
Mommy
! I want Mah-ha-ha-ha-my!”

Paul shut the door on his daughter’s weeping. He thought he had known what it was like to be the world’s worst father.

Now, as he heard Aliyah wail, he knew.

A
liyah had tried
to escape twice since he’d locked her in the executive bathroom. The first time, he’d caught her teetering on the toilet tank… a heart-stopping sight for any parent, doubly so when she saw him coming and jumped for the ventilation grate. The second time, she’d squirmed into the cabinet under the sink, probing for exits – another heart-stopper when he opened the bathroom and couldn’t find her.

He cracked the bathroom door open to find Aliyah half-asleep, playing Nintendo. He knew his daughter well enough to recognize exhaustion; once she got her strength back, she’d start screaming for help again.

Or she’d start screaming when her painkillers wore off.

Meanwhile, Valentine had passed out on the desk, breathing shallowly. Paul wasn’t sure what was happening underneath her pseudoskin; was the wound worsening?

Then there was his own flux load, a migraine headache. He felt it squirming around him, eager to give him all the worst coincidences, all involving Aliyah; there were a hundred bad things that could happen in there.

The trick, he thought, was not to panic.

He was in this bind because he hadn’t considered the future. He’d rushed to help Aliyah, rushed to make Flex, rushed to Gunza’s lair.

Paul jotted ideas on a legal pad. He opened the desk drawers to pull out some files from the FBI, wincing at the slight increase in flux, then spread them across the floor to draw it all together.

Two hours later, he woke Valentine. She came to with a groggy surprise.

“What’s going on? She attacking?”

“No, we’re safe,” Paul said. “We need to get you a doctor.”

She frowned at the bathroom door. “You can’t leave her alone.”

“No.”

“So where will you find a doctor who’ll treat a ’mancer and a screaming girl?”

“Do you think two ’mancers can cast a spell together? I mean, outside of Unimancy?”

She made a pained noise.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s an ‘I don’t know,’ Paul. We ’mancers generally don’t hang tight, you know? It’s not like a pyromancer and, I dunno, a felimancer have a ton to talk about.”

“But is it possible?”

“Like I’m a scholar? You’ve met more ’mancers than I have. How many of them worked together?”

“…None,” he admitted. “But that’s not to say it’s impossible. A lot of knowledge burned in Europe. And the ’mancer panic after made people terrified to investigate. Maybe they used to do it all the time, and we forgot how–”

“But your ’mancy, it’s…” She shrugged in perplexity. “It’s so
boring
.”

“If we can combine ’mancies, I can get you a doctor. And get us a way to lure Anathema in when we’re ready. And we…” He swallowed, embarrassed. “We make great Flex together. Whenever we’ve worked, it’s like you left off where I began. And… I know it’s weird…”

“It’s like a threesome,” she said.

Paul didn’t know what to say to that.

“You, me, and the magic,” she clarified. “You don’t strike me as a guy who’s had a lotta threesomes, Paul…”

“None, actually.”

“…but most are awkward. Really awkward. One guy wants to play monkey in the middle and never leaves, or there’s two people who wanna bang and the only way they can do it is to have you in the room, or it’s some couple trying to use you as sex spackle to patch up a bad marriage, or…”

“Can we talk less about threesomes?” Paul asked. “I mean, with my daughter in earshot?”

“Birds and bees, man. There’s no shame in it.”

“You’re dying, and you’re giving me lectures in
parenting
?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She wiped her forehead. “I just don’t know where I’d begin. I’m all videogames. Not a lot of paperwork there.”

“All this starts with one letter. On the desk of a man who probably wants to kill us. Watch me create it.” He reached out with his ’mancy, feeling a fresh load of flux clog his sinuses. On a nice desk in Long Island, next to a stack of life insurance claims, a formal summons hived off from the mass of paperwork to slide to the center of the blotter. “There. Can you feel that?”

She squirmed. “…yeah. Good God, is that what it feels like to be you? All that – that responsibility? Your whole world is choked with obligations; it’s like – like living deep undersea, where the pressure would kill a normal man…”

He felt her magic seeping into him, too – a selfish spasm of enjoyment, never caring what happened beyond the next level. He wanted to ask her how she
lived
like that. Didn’t she realize rents had to be paid, bills had to be set up…

…but, with an effort, he backed away.

“Don’t compare,” Paul urged her, feeling the foundations of his ’mancy quiver as Valentine’s ’mancy infiltrated, their ‘mancies jockeying for supremacy. “This isn’t about who’s right. Remember how lonely you felt when you first did magic? Like no one would ever understand you?”

She held his hand, a sisterly touch. “Yes. I remember.”

“This is about us creating something beyond the pale. We couldn’t be more different. But we have…” He paused reverently. “We have this.”

“Yes.” He felt her backing away from his ’mancy; she had decided not to question who he was, instead accepting that she existed parallel to him, different but equal, a tolerance that flooded him with gratitude. She ignored their wildly dissimilar world views to focus on this shared space of adulation.

This magic.

“We can change the world,” she whispered, amazed.

“We will,” Paul reassured her. “And it starts with you getting his attention…”

V
alentine talked
a lot when she got nervous. She peered out of the frosted glass office window, scanning the construction floor. “How soon until he arrives?”

“…we’ll know when he gets here.”

“A guy like that knows which side his bread is buttered on,” Valentine mused, lent strength by the potential of action. “On the other hand, maybe he doesn’t wanna be bossed around. But if he thought we had a really good deal, he’d be here by now. What do you think?”

I think I’d feel better if you shut up
, Paul thought, itching in his new leather-and-gas-mask suit layered over pseudoskin. He boiled with nervousness. He didn’t know if he could act well enough to make this work. He didn’t know whether Oscar would go for his offer. He didn’t know what he’d do if Oscar
rejected
his offer.

…he didn’t know how to handle Valentine.

He was afraid to look at her now, lest he overflow with emotions. He felt overwhelmed by a bizarre gratitude, almost verging on worship, because – especially after Aliyah – he’d opened his magic up to her. She’d responded with eagerness, entwining her magic with his…

…it was humiliating, how badly he’d needed that release. Ever since he’d discovered that illustromancer, he’d felt this yearning to see the world reshaped by obsession again. And when he discovered he could do magic, that joy was tarnished by having to hide it.

Yet he’d shared. It hadn’t been like the Flex, where he’d had to strangle his love. For the first time, he’d cast a spell with someone watching – and she’d not just tolerated his ’mancy, but exulted in his power.

Yet he was certain if he asked too many questions, he’d find that Valentine was secretly horrified by his desires – same as his wife, same as Aliyah, same as everyone he ever knew. Hell, he’d felt her disgust at the compartmentalized way he lived his life; eventually, she’d write him off as another freak.

He needed to keep his illusions for a little while, warm himself by them – the idea that he might be normal to someone.

“…Paul? Why aren’t you looking at me? Did I skin your eyes wrong?”

He glanced away, trusting the smoked-glass lens of the gasmask to shield his gaze. She flipped up her eye patch as if she could somehow see out of that cavernous wound.

“Is it Aliyah?”

“…it’s fine,” Paul said.

“Nope. We’re about to face down some mobsters, maybe eat a firefight. Every time this ‘broody secrets before the storm’ thing happens in an RPG, it means the next scene’s about to go to shit. So, what the hell is eating you?”

“…it’s nothing.”

She drew in a quick breath, clapped a hand over her mouth to cover her grin. “Oh, my God, Paul. Are you… are you
embarrassed
? About the – the magic?”

He said nothing. Valentine let out a peal of laughter. Paul’s face flushed beneath the pseudoskin.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” Paul asked.

“Oh,
sweetie
. You duckling. You adorable duckling. Quack, quack, quack.” She laughed again, covering her smile with her fingertips in guilty shame.

“I’m not a duck,” he grumbled.

She turned him to face her. “No, come on, Paul, I’ve done this foie gras rodeo before. You get with someone inexperienced, it’s really intense, and then you find out they’ve imprinted on you. Like a duckling. Then they follow you around, taking all the emotions kicked up by that flood of orgone and trying to tether them to some half-assed construction of you. That spell was great, don’t get me wrong, I want to do it again, but… don’t try to make it
mean
something.”

“I’ve never done that before,” he snapped.

“Well, neither have I! But that’s chemistry for you, Paul: primal, unguessable, ephemeral. And oh, my God, if you try to build that randomness into reasons, I will beat the shit out of you.”

“I’m not a
child
, Valentine. I’m fifteen years older than you.”

“And you frittered away
that
head start. Come on, Paul, you’re–”

A clattering from outside. People stepping through the glass and loose nails.

“…Showtime.” The false skin on her shoulder sloughed off, plopping to the floor.

Paul felt fake – a skinny BDSM clown in a pathetic gasmask and leather suit. The synthetic leg she’d formed for him had no bones, a floppy sadness that was like trying to walk on a Nerf bat. Valentine hadn’t meant to laugh at him, but... The last woman to laugh at him like that was his wife. His
ex
-wife. He didn’t need to have those feelings resurfacing.

“You should do this, Valentine.” He wobbled on his one-and-a-half good legs. “I don’t know this character. I’m not an actor…”

“But you
are
a negotiator.” She wriggled her fingers; a rattle shook the nails on the concrete outside. There were yelps, the sound of guns being drawn, the scrapes as sawhorses slid across the floor. “I can’t get my landlord to fix my faucet. You’re the guy who knows how to forge deals. So, trust me; you gotta channel Mantis, or I’m gonna bleed to death.”

“I’ve never even played the
game
!”

“The character will feed you. You won’t really be you; you’ll be channeling an avatar. You’ll be riding across his personality, like a raft bouncing over whitewater.”

“That’s supposed to
comfort
me?”

“Get out there before I pass out.” She shoved him out the door.

Paul was hauled upward by some shivering force. He jerked back and forth in a series of turbulences, as if the power that held him threatened to shred itself to pieces.

His missing leg no longer mattered; he was gliding out over the second-floor railing, hovering two stories above the office floor, looking down upon it like a God.

The power yanked him along, hauling him high into the air. A mad buzz of pleasure shot through him. His ’mancy was about things stuffed safely into envelopes.

Valentine’s ’mancy was about unleashing havoc.

Yet Paul was drawn to it, the secret thrill of watching a car crash. Riding Valentine’s power was a violent rush, but there was something beautiful about watching glass buckle and burst into glittering shards.

The four bodyguards had dropped to their knees, clutching at their faces. They stood in a vortex of psychokinetically moved objects – hammers, ladders, cubicles all whirled in a slow-motion cyclone, picking up speed. Everything moved to Paul’s tune – a
literal
tune, a slow organ-and-cello waltz.

All except for Oscar Gargunza Ruiz, who stood in the vortex’s center – a small dark man in a pristine white suit, planting his cane on the ground as though it rooted him there. He glanced from side to side, sizing up the moving world.

Paul felt a pang of sympathy. He’d felt so small under Gunza’s hulking frame, and Oscar was smaller still. What had it been like to be a tiny boy with a violent brother? The FBI had catalogued Oscar’s boyhood injuries; the medical records chronicled his repeated trips to the ER…

The thought distracted him, and the avatar-mancy surged forward. Paul’s gas mask hissed. His skin pulled taut, emaciated, compressing his body into a gaunt parody of itself.

A low shriek filled the office floor. It took Paul a moment to realize that awful fingers-on-chalkboard noise emanated from him. That he was laughing, a raspy wheeze. The men’s fear rose up from below; he drank it down.

Paul had to talk
now
, before he lost himself to this creature Valentine had unleashed. He struggled to remember everything he’d planned to say – but he was flooded with false memories of a man in leather armor and flowing headband, sneaking through hallways underneath a box… Snake? Solid Snake? Was that a name?

What was Metal Gear Solid?

“
Oscar Gargunza Ruiz!
” he rasped, fighting his way back to himself. “Your brother shattered your shoulder in three places when you were twelve, in a fight over chocolate milk. You alone seemed to understand Gunza for what he was: the worst kind of dealer. Not in it for the cash or the power, but the
stardom
.”

Oscar looked up at Paul, his placid face registering fear at being so casually unveiled… Or was it revulsion at the memory of his dead brother?

Oh, yes
, Paul thought.
There’s no love among villains here
.

Oscar’s bodyguards readied their guns, made skittish by the potent display of power. No wonder. This vulgar ’mancy had died with Europe.

“You took a different route,” Paul shouted down, unable to suppress a tinge of admiration. “When Gunza yelled, you whispered. Where he encouraged sloppiness, you mandated perfection. So, when
you
were granted power years ahead of anyone’s expectations, you relegated your brother to the ass end of the business. You handed him just enough power for him to hang himself… and waited for the noose.”

Oscar Gargunza Ruiz allowed himself an aw-shucks grin. Then he spoke loudly, with the stiff formality of a man who suspects he may be being recorded. “I confirm nothing. All I know is that my poor brother got himself involved in ’mancy – a business that never pays off. And so I must ask, videogamemancer: who are you?”

“I am–”

One of Oscar’s bodyguards fired in panic.

It was not Paul whose telekinesis snatched the bullet from the air before flinging the bodyguard through a glass window, nor Paul who answered Oscar’s question.

“
You doubt my power?!
Now I will show you why I am the most powerful practitioner of psychokinesis and telepathy in the world!
” Paul/Not-Paul roared, glass shattering in every frame, shards whipping into the whirlwind. “
I am Psycho Mantis
!”