Axiom of Two

Glacia: Porcelain Scars

I was seventeen in ’82, and very full of myself. I had already read the books in Papa’s study, I followed him to work, and still craved more. When I began to get in the way, it was tolerated. I was far too nosey, but because of who my father was, Crey simply ignored me.

I was harmless, after all, and knew my place. I had always been such a well behaved little girl. Or so they thought, which worked for me.

They caught on far too late that the jokes I told at my mother’s parties were about so much more than their asinine job titles. That I tipped off competitors and people they were economically overshadowing and the government. That I changed numbers and pulled plugs, messed with security and misplaced important items. All while gaining knowledge I shouldn’t have had.

It was all a game to me, watch the puppets run around until their strings tangled. I was safe: not an employee, not a subject, and thus not in their database. They searched their staff for the source of the leaks, and never looked at me twice, as if anyone ever had.

Convenient.

I learned their technology and science, both human and Rikti. I learned involvement with other groups, and their under-the-table political influence. The only thing I cared about, though, and what most of my time was devoted to, was their work with Superbeings. Humans that were special and powerful, more than I would ever amount to.

There was a buzz in Crey these days – a new pair of D’s on legs named Madam Q. Someone very high up in Crey’s hierarchy sent her to my father’s department to help manage the branch – and head a new, top secret project. Everyone fell in love with her. She was smart, beautiful, and charming. Only I hated her. She seemed fake on so many levels: acting, manipulating through smiles, gaudy shows of knowledge, peeks of long legs. She had too many secrets and too much power. Maybe I was just jealous, but at lease my legs were always better.

Our dislike was mutual. How unprofessional, not to mention dangerous, it was to let non-personnel wander freely. Q was the first to suspect my sabotage. We tried to expose each other without showing ourselves for months, but in the end she had more resources.

She helped Crey narrow their search down to our branch, and they sent in Paragon Protectors to keep an eye out. It was only a matter of time before they saw me do more than observe from the sidelines, but I was young and high on my ego. As far as I was concerned, I was just as intangible to them as everyone else.

I until November 19th of the next year, I was.

The air had been pregnant with tension. People were waiting for something. It was cold and overcast, but I knew behind the clouds the sun was setting. But, it seemed whatever was happening was for another day and so I went to leave out the side through the medical wards, stopping in the lounge to grab some tea.

Only, something was happening. In an eerie garble, a woman screamed. Startled, I dropped my cup. On the bright floor, the tea stood out like blood. This was probably what gave away that I was there.

I went to the nearest door and pressed my ear against it. There were doctors talking, coolly at first and becoming more excited – cesarean, glowing, Q, finally a success!

The room fell silent as they rushed out the back, towards the nurseries. I held my breath and opened the door, gambling that there was no one left. The room wasn’t empty, but I was alone. Madam Q, or some sick version of her anyway, laid lifeless on a table, flayed wide open. Her blood was the only thing about her that had color, and even it’s red was not quite right. Besides a lack of pigment, she had no mouth, no hair or nails or navel. She had breasts, but they were smooth lumps, smooth like her pore-less skin. She had eyes, but they had no veins or pupils, just blank and white.

It makes my stomach turn to touch her, but I have to close those eyes.

There was a clipboard hanging on the end of the bed. There is the Crey Industries logo and the title HEREDITARY ABOMINATION TRACKING EXPERIMENT. There is something about the experiment FU-510-N0, but I can’t concentrate with the metallic smell in the air. I cover her up with a sheet, it soaks up her blood into a meaningless inkblot, but at least I don’t have to see her now.

I hear someone coming down the hall, there is a stutter in their walk and then their pace quickens. I need to move, I can’t go to the hallway again and so I go into the nurseries.

It’s oddly quiet, people are here, they’ve had extra staff in this wing for the last two weeks twenty four hours a day. Everyone must be absorbed in that baby. I wonder what’s so special about it.

There is a sanitation station up ahead. Wash basins, masks, gloves, hair nets, fresh scrubs. Anything that may be needed. This is very convenient. I slip in and tuck my long hair in a net, cover my face and hands, and hide my little black dress in a sterile white uniform.

I head back into the hall and start walking, a group of doctors shuffle out of a door. As soon as the door opens, screaming fills the hall. That baby has quite a set of lungs, and it is pissed off at the world it’s been forced into. It’s also… purple, or glowing purple, I can’t tell.

I feel a stab of jealousy. This kid has barely been here five minutes, and it is already more than I ever was or will be. It’s special, some sort of mutant, no wonder they are making such a fuss. It must be powerful.

They carry it, like a priceless vase, crying all the way to an open room. There are two men here. One is in preacher’s garb slouched over with his forearms on his knees, head and hands hanging. When the doctors come in, he doesn’t look up. His eyes are those of a dead man. Must be the father, but there is nothing in his eyes.

The other man is in a crisp suit, he’s inside but still wearing dead black sunglasses and an earpiece. He stands squarely when the doctors come in, facing the other man.

“It’s a boy!” one of the doctors sings, overly happy.

Since when was Crey a public hospital? They must want something from that baby. I wonder why he’s so damn special…stupid kid.

“This is your son.” The suited man tells the other, his voice is matter-of-fact and deadpan stale. The preacher looks up slowly.

“My… boy.” No more emotion in his voice than his eyes.

“Yes. He killed your beautiful, loving wife.” The suit continues.

His wife? That was his wife?

“My… wife.” His voice is thick.

“Yes. You loved her very, very much.” He is telling the preacher what his life is, what he thinks, and I feel it getting harder and harder to keep my tongue still. This is what they have done to me all my life. I hate the man in the suit.

“Now,” he continues, “do you love your son?”

There is a very long pause, and it looks like the suited man is either going to speak again or strike the preacher when there is a quiet ‘no.’

“No, no you don’t, but you will take him and try to fix him. It is a pity you will never succeed.” the suit smiles and relaxes, “Now go on and take a drink.”

The doctors offer the son, but the preacher makes no move for him, just takes a swig from the brown paper bag at his feet and cradles his head in his hands.

I just watched them break him. He yielded and they just made him what they wanted, but…

A nurse scuttles by me with a carrier and they place the kid, still yelling at the world, into it and set it at the man’s feet. They turn and leave him, I don’t know what to do so I stand there dumbly.

The last doctor turns around, “You two,” he looks at me and the other nurse, “go take the womb down to the freezers.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about, but the nurse does and so I just follow her. She leads us back to the room the dead Q was in, and when she sees that the sheet is over her she lets out a surprised little ‘Oh.’

I hold the door open as she pushes the cart out into the hallway. My cup and tea are already gone, with no trace they were ever there. This makes me nervous.

I don’t know the way, so I offer to push and she eyes me warily. I lie, saying that I left my clearance card in the rush, she buys it. We go into a storage room, one with boxes of extra vials and Petri dishes and lenses. Behind a row of boxes there is a conveniently out of the way elevator that we take down, I would guess, three levels. From there we travel west farther than I thought the Crey building reached.

There is a freezer here, and what is inside it makes my skin crawl. The nurse pulls the cart from my hands when I don’t move and shoves it in the end of the closest row of… of Madam Q’s. She picks up the clipboard and starts writing things on it.

Some of the Q’s have been here a long, long time. Their moisture had left their flesh and formed cocoons of ice around their bodies. I couldn’t count how many were here, shriveled and colorless. Some were fused – two or three – together like they had never managed to split completely. Others were missing parts, or had them put together wrong.

But the ones on the tables were perfect. White and still and blank, they all, save one, stared back at me with eyes that had no pupils. Only the ones I had closed offered any relief.

I immediately hate all of them. Mass production dolls. Each the same, each used for their purpose, then put up on the shelf.

The little nurse turns around and her eyes widened, but she is not looking at me. I turn around to see a tall man, a Paragon Protector, leaning casually against the wall. I can’t see his eyes, but I know he is looking right at me and that I am totally screwed.

“Identification?” The littler nurse flashes her card on the way by me and doesn’t look back.

“None?” He reaches around me and closes the door, he is far too close to me, “What exactly do you think you are doing?”

I have no answer to that, I don’t know what I am doing, so I just stay quiet. He sighs and pulls out a syringe from his belt. While he is removing the cap I try to dash but he catches my arm and twists it painfully behind my back. He stabs me between my neck and shoulder, and almost immediately my world starts to fade to black.

When I come to again I am tied and gagged in the back of an old Chrysler. There is what looks to be one of the Family’s men driving, and one in the back with me, stroking my leg absentmindedly. In the passenger seat is Jack Worth, assistant to my father and Madam Q.

This can’t be good.

The ride becomes jarring as we, I assume, pull off the road and onto a dirt drive. A short while later we stop, seems I woke up just in time. The men all get out, and Jack opens the door then pulls me out and up onto my tied feet. We are standing on the shore of a frozen lake I do not recognize.

“Good morning, sunshine.” He purrs in my ear, “You were getting to be quite a pest, you know, but that’s all right now. Nothing some good old fashioned elbow grease can’t take care of.”

I hear the Family laugh and crack their knuckles. They are wearing the same suit and hat, save for that one was purple and the other white.

“I regret to inform you,” Jack continues, “that the papers say you were killed yesterday evening when a semi skidded on a patch of black ice and lost control. It’s a real shame to lose such a pretty doll like yourself.

“Now, you understand that we would be in quite a predicament if someone saw you after we ran that article, so we are going to have to insure that that doesn’t happen.” He sighs dramatically, “Your poor mother has been in tears all day.”

I’m sure she has, I bet she cried all the way to the next party in a new diamond necklace.

“As for your father, he has a gift.”

This must be their cue, the purple suit comes over and holds me up as he takes the bandana out of my mouth and removes ropes that bind me. I still feel drowsy, and now I’m freezing cold and going numb. I can’t move my fingers, let alone run.

White pops the trunk and lifts a small metal barrel of something out, then he pulls out a hazard suit and crowbar out and hands them to Jack, who starts his monologue again. As jack is talking, the Family walk out onto the lake and start hacking at the ice, but I don’t notice them much.

“He says that you seem to be enamored with, of all things, mutants. Seems you think of them as some sort of … special. Well, sweetheart, I hate to break it to you but all they are is freaks. I could understand fascination with beings greater than us normal people. But mutants? Nothing respectable to them.

“Science and technology, they are respectable. A testament to the greatness of a human mind. Our civilization.

“Natural, too. They have to make something from nothing. They start with a normal base and through sweat and blood they force themselves to a higher level.

“Even magic has some merit. It takes years to learn and master those ancient arts. I’ll never understand it, but I respect that power

“Mutants though? Just freaks. Nothing special. Hell, we can manufacture them. Just tools, dolls.”

“That’s not true!” I finally speak up, “A mutant can do anything science or technology or magic can with ease and familiarity because it is natural to them.”

He eyes me and finishes zipping up his suit. The Family get in the car and Jack pries the barrel open then picks it up. When he speaks again it is warped and muffled.

“Well, then, I’m glad you feel that way… all things considered.”

With one swoop he sends a bright green liquid from the barrel onto me. It just feels cold, and I see it eating away at the frozen ground before I realize it is boiling on my skin. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.

My eyes are watering and my breath burns all the way into my lungs. I double over and feel my muscles spasm violently.

Papa, you bastard. I bet you think you’re so damn funny. Bet you’re laughing in your study over a glass of vodka with that little maid giving you a good blow, or maybe it is Q you have on her knees.

I fall to my knees and watch through blurry eyes as Jack approaches me, he grabs my collar and starts to drag me onto the ice. I feel like I am turning inside out, stretching and multiplying and burning.

We reach the hole the Family cut – all I can see of them are two distant white orbs, one surrounded by white, the other purple. Jack unceremoniously dumps me into the water. It’s as much of a shock as the crap he threw on me, but it numbs my nerves, and even though my lungs are filling up with cold liquid death, I am thankful.

I never expected to open my eyes again, but I did. The unfamiliar ceiling of a rusting Ford truck stares back at me. I don’t have the strength to turn my head, but even though I can feel we are moving, the engine is not running and there is no rumble of the road. I don’t think too much of it, just close my eyes.

“Ah, lass, seems ye’re still with us, ye’.” It takes far too much time, will, and strength to turn my head and look at him. “Yeh had me o bi’ worried, I admi’.”

He’s an old fisherman it seems, or a sailor. Either way, the smell of water has made itself permanent on him. He only had about three teeth, and they are tobacco yellow, but his wrinkled face is friendly and calm.

It was warm, it must have been spring, or maybe summer. The lake would have turned and he was there to fish and found my body instead. He must think he is rescuing me. I immediately hate him.

He started to cough, a rattle that grew into wheezing gasps. I opened my eyes again and saw a sickly green halo above his head. The harder I concentrated on it, the brighter it glowed, and the more violent his coughs grew.

I’m doing this.

I needed him to drive, though, and so I will the circle to disappear. It leaves immediately, and I feel a wave of empowerment, enough to push myself up on shaking arms and look around.

“Ah, aye!” he pounds on his chest a few times, “Damn this ol’ lungs o’ mine… On o ferry, dearhear’, goin’ back o the Ro’ Isles.”

The Rogue Isles, wonderful, but it’s better than a lake bed. Well, maybe.

Nothing but water out the window, and I have had my share of that, so I look down at myself and feel my stomach drop. I must have looked like a big fish myself laying on the beach. Under a scratchy old blanket, I am naked, all my clothes long eaten away.

The side mirror for his truck is laying cracked on the dashboard, and with a considerable effort I grab it. The old man seems to have fallen asleep, a line of spittle hanging from his lip.

I hold my breath and look in the mirror. The eyes that look back at me are not the mix of grey and gold they used to be. They are a bleached aqua that could be jade or could be blue. My skin is white and unnaturally smooth, dark spots of indigo and violet splotched across it like lichen. Where it used to fade to a dusty rose – under the fingernails, around my eyes, my lips, my areolas, my cheeks, that faint dusting of freckles – my skin is now a pale blue. All my hair has fallen out. All of it, on my body, my head, my eyebrows, my eyelashes, but the fresh stubble that is coming back is silvery white.

I look a lot like those– No! Don’t think that.

What bothers me the most are the growths, tumors. Across my knuckles and down the side of my wrists. Down the ridge of my spine and along my shoulders. Down the sides of my hips to my thighs. Along my feet and up the ankle. There is one lump where my navel used to be, and the tips of my ears have elongated unbelievably. Each row starts with a lump no bigger than a pebble, each one elongating more into a boneless finger shape. They are symmetrical on my body, they remind me of wings or fins or spines, but regardless they make my stomach want to empty, if only I had something in it.

I throw the mirror and wrap myself tightly in the blanket – what a joke, it’s not much more than a tarp, meant not for warmth nor comfort – and the old man wakes with a start. He looks at me, but I am staring out the window at nothing.

I cannot walk and so he carries me. I hate him. I hate being this weak. I have something special now, I’ve seen it and I can feel it, but I cannot do anything with it. I remember that glowing baby and how I had disliked him because he was just an infant and already special, but now I could sympathize with him. We were in the same predicament, imbued with something powerful and unable to use it at all. No wonder he screamed so loud.

Healing took much quicker than I expected. I filled my tall frame of just over five-foot-ten – which had been only been 5’5” the winter before – in only three months. I was fit and felt much healthier than I ever had before. This pleased me. My metabolism seemed to run perpetually off of itself, and I rarely ate, though the old man cooked me three meals a day, every day.

Most of my time went to practicing. I had discovered my control of radiation on the old man when he took me from my lake grave. Ice came soon after, when he was gone to get something he thought might help me and my throat was dry with thirst. I was still weak and could not stand on my own. There was a glass of water on the counter – a piece of plywood on two bar stools – but I could not reach it. I tried and ended up falling from the torn couch to the rough wooden floor.

I dismissively wave my hand at it in frustration and close my eyes. They open again when I hear the cup hit the ground and water splash. There is a large chunk of ice next to it that I know was not in the glass.

I did that.

I look at my hand and concentrate. Frost covers my fingertips and a haze forms in the air, but nothing else. There is a fine film of sweat on my brow and my lips hurt with drought. I close my fist and eyes and think harder. When I open everything again there are three pieces of ice, none bigger than a pea, in my hand. It’s a start. I let them melt in my mouth and feel a bit better.

My father had me drenched in waste, probably from his labs, as a kind of cruel joke or last experiment, saying that he hoped I turned into one of the freaks I obsessed over. He just wanted to give me pain and irony. The lake was just a convenient place to dump me. He didn’t expect it to all backfire on him.

The radiation had mutated my cells, forced them into rapid, abnormal growth that would have horribly mutated my body, burning me up until the pain was too much to take any more. But the cold slowed the process and dulled the sting. Similarly, the water sent my system into shock, into hypothermia, it drowned me and froze the water in my body into small crystals that punctured my veins, my organs, my everything. But the radiation kept my body going, if only by force, and melted the ice, repaired its damage.

Now I control both elements comfortably. I have been removing my tumors the last few weeks, and today my last one – the one in my navel – went. I numb them with ice, and cut them off with an old pocket knife I found. My radiation heals them, but once the numbness goes away I can still feel the pain though there is no wound. I can only do three or four every time and then I must wait a few days for the phantom pains to subside. They leave a scar, a just barely visible blue pucker, but I don’t mind them.

I left my ears, besides having no way to cut them so they would look normal, I have grown to rather like them. My hair is just brushing my shoulders, it is the length my parents always made me keep it at, but I plan to let it grow out long just as I always wanted. I smile.

This is it, then. It is time for me to go, and the old man has outlived his usefulness. I have always hated him, but he did take care of me. So, I am kind, an icicle through the bridge of his nose and into his brain. Quick. He doesn’t feel it, he never wakes.

The first thing I do is get a man, a Family man. I siphon off of him and make my first few grand this way. When he starts getting lippy with me I frame him and let his buddies take care of the mess.

I skip from one corrupted heart to the next for years, making a living without making a name. I never had my own identity before, and I feel no attachment to a name, a person, a place. I keep my money in cash, and everyone I meet knows me as something different.

The people I find useful I keep in touch with, the others I kill or forget. I never felt, only acted. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. If I didn’t, I lost what little bit of myself that I had made. When I lose that I am left with no core, a little doll, that consists only of what other people told me I was. So I moved from idiot to idiot with no regrets. I sucked them dry and left them for dead.

Once I let a man bewitch me, and I was a damn fool for it.

I eventually moved on and fell back into old habits. I used and hoarded and watched and waited. It took me over two decades before I decided it was time to pay Crey and my father a visit. Time, however, is trivial to me, for in those years I only aged three biologically.

It was all very convenient, until I found myself fascinated by another.