Chapter Thirteen: PR Work

When memories flash before my eyes, I expect to come to a grand conclusion about the nature of my shitty life. But I don't. I don't remember anything about my mother's death, so I only see the waiting room itself, the chair with the tough seat and the scratches down the hard plastic arms. As something inside my neck cracks, I think that all these memories, of the cold hospital waiting room, of the first time I found liquor spilling down the side of the dining room table, of discovering 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' wrapped under the Christmas tree, I think that all these memories are faded to me. What I remember most, are my friends.

I remember Percy dragging me around her house, dancing like an idiot. I remember dinner before the homecoming dance, how Chip had spoken. Whole paragraphs spilled out of him. He smiled and laughed and seeing him like that made me think my heart would burst. I remember the first time I thought about Chip in a not wholly platonic way. He was playing Percy's favorite love song on his electric guitar. I'd walked into the room, chewing a gooey cookie with chocolate chunks for chips. He swung his guitar at me, smirked, and shot me a wink. I'd raced out of his attic and slammed the door behind me. I clutched my blushing face, drew my knees to my chest on the bottom step. Giggled nervously.

I remember this. I remember every minute I spent with them, every smile, every laugh. I remember it all so acutely in this one minute I'm dangling.

I threw it all away.

I've acted jaded and angsty. Talked about being a bad person. But I feel it now. And for this one minute, as my throat cracks in this person's hands, I feel so, so sorry. I want to make it right. I want to undo how I hurt Chip. I want to undo how I toyed with Monet.

My foot slams into the figure's sternum. I get two solid hits to his ribcage with both fists. He yelps and blood springs up. It's a moment of weakness on their part that has me twisting out of their hands and falling hard onto the floor. I lay gasping, hands and shins, elbows wobbling to support my weight. The figure blocks the doorway; there's no way out except in. The darkness is heavy and presses in from all directions. As blood rushes to my skull, I stumble to my feet.

"What is this place?" I'm slurring. The world is spinning so fast the words tumbling and sliding through my brain in a thick, black fog. "What is this?"

I can only make out the figure by the eyes. Big, blue, glowing. They make the blackness seem all the more crushing by comparison, and so I close my eyes and stop looking. Knuckles brush my jaw, a glancing blow. I duck low, lift my heel, and slam it hard into something soft. They make another cry, a hiss of air through a clenched jaw. I turn my back to them for a second, reaching one arm, hoping for contact with a wall, something to find my way around the weird place. A few more steps and my fingertips brush up against stucco, which digs into my skin like needles. A steel toe stomps my instep and I bite my lip so hard it bleeds.

I throw my elbow wildly, missing, and the momentum throws my feet back. I topple into the figure, who takes advantage of my blunder and slams their elbow in the place my shoulder meets my neck. I can't help it. My mind disconnects from my body and my legs collapse beneath me. As I'm falling to my knees, spitting blood from my torn lip, I grab at the wall in a bid for balance. My fingertips find the smooth plastic switch, and I throw it. Yellow light explodes around me in a blinding flash. I don't know what I expect from the figure, a hiss, the drip of melting flesh on my skin, but that doesn't matter, because at first, I don't look at them.

All I know is that I don't expect the manor house to look the way it does, mahogany floor, egg-shell color walls that make up the foyer hall. And the booming laughter of people I can't see. As if some spell was released, a thousand smells hit me all at once. The spice of incense. That all-familiar reek of alcohol which has me gripping the wall for support. And underneath that, the metallic tinge of blood.

"This is a nightmare, isn't it?" I say, my back pressed to the stucco. My eyes are squeezed shut again, my legs limp underneath me on the floor is I try to get my limbs to respond. Nothing connects. For a moment, I'm completely offline, clenching at the wall so hard pieces of stucco collect under my nails. I've had my share of nightmares, and in each, I've felt emotions. Mostly fear. But never pain. The throbbing in my throat, the pulsing ache in my foot. My eyes spring open. This isn't a nightmare at all, and I've opened myself up to attack.

But the figure is laughing, holding out a hand. No longer a figure, but a man with a broad and flat face and a nose that's pushed to the side, like it's been broken. Same blue eyes I saw in the darkness.

"What's happening?" Back online, I press my fingers to my aching temples. Not how you ask for a job with an illegal organization, but with the glowing windows, the darkness, the sudden bombardment of scents and laughter, that's all I want to know. "What is this? Where am I?"

"Calls himself a power-harvester." The man smiles at me. His teeth are beautiful. The brightest white I've ever seen, all perfectly straight. "What brings you here?"

My shoulders tense against the wall and I glare at his extended hand. I glare until I remember I came here and that this is all my fault. That I'm lucky I'm not dead. That I need to win their favor. I stop glaring and take his hand, forcing a smile.

"Friends gave me the address." I glance over his shoulder as he helps me to my feet. The man with the greasy blonde hair and the woman in the wrinkled shirt lounge back in a semi-circle of folding chairs. Opened cans, oily yellow circles growing at their feet. "Hey."

"Hey," the man says, his hand hovering over his hip. The woman nods, picking up her can and drawing a long sip. I step back reflexively.

"Is this is a test?" My fists clench and press against my hips. I don't have a weapon on me. Not even a cellphone. And the empty place on my side acts as a reminder. I need to act like someone who won't get his head blown off. Clueless and scared isn't a good look for me and heat flares into my bruising face at the thought of it. Of how I'm acting. "Forgive me." I smile, all teeth. "Just..could I speak to your leader?"

The woman is still swigging from her can of beer. All the hairs on the back of my neck and arms are standing up, and I try not to wrinkle my nose. The man with the blue eyes and the broken nose presses his hand over my head on the wall, caging me between the plaster and his body. Pain is pressing into my temples, sudden and stabbing.

"What do you want from them, mutant?"

"I want to learn." My brain is aching. Do I make myself seem intimidating? Valuable? Or do I make myself seem like less of a threat? I don't know, so I settle for somewhere in between, with my heels digging into the ground, my shoulders boxed in and my head hung. No weapon, so I roll my hands in my hoodie-pulls, figuring I can rip them out and use them as a makeshift...something. This acting before I think will be the death of me, but I don't care about that. "I've harvested the powers from a lot of militant supers. I want to get better at it. And I want to become human." I swallow the knot growing in the back of my throat. I glance over the heads of the man and the woman and their friends hunched in their folding chairs. Still darkness. Despite the lights, I can only make out a few tilted mahogany frames dangling from the walls. Then, there's only blackness.

"Illusion powers?" I say under my breath. The man's smile stretches until it must ache, and then he drops his arm so it swings at his side.

"Come," he says, sidestepping the men and women in their drinking circle. I wince when I step into a beer puddle, glad to keep my head lows so they can't see my expression. The darkness falls away into the dim outline of stairs. A splash of white light from some unseen place, highlighting every sharp angle, but not enough to give a texture. I follow the man tentatively, each step measured and slow. I've never stood in a warped reality before, and I feel myself wishing for someone's hand to hold. I think of Chip and dig my nails into my upper thigh so deeply blood wells up. A door appears, outlined in gold. One moment we're standing in total darkness, the next, in a hall that smells of spicy incense. Pale walls, white trim and doors, and open windows that show the suburban island and the twinkling skyscrapers surrounding it. "What a strange city," I say, wondering (and not for the first time) whether I'm hallucinating this whole 'adventure.'

The man raps the door three times, and it flies open.

The floor falls out beneath me. The house melts. Pale blue walls dribble down into the darkness, and when I glance below, everything is black. I'm aware I'm falling. I'm aware that the darkness is swallowing me whole. I'm also aware that I'm standing still inside a manor house in the suburban sect of Starlight City. I hug my arms around my chest. I want to quit this, I want to go home...

I land hard in a plush red rolly chair and grab at the chrome armrests. In front of me is an old rolltop desk. Brass handles, scratches in the sides and face.  And on it, a single cup of tea, steam whispering from the brim in smoky curlicues.

"Max." The voice is inhumanly low. The body, just a dark blot. To protect their identity, I know, but my hands are shaking as I grip the chair. I can feel their voice reverberating inside me, and it makes me feel cold and sick. That they use my name so freely, and in a tone I can't analyze, throws me. I don't know the correct way to react. So, I don't react at all. The blob extends an appendage, and I feel fingers on my hand. It takes every ounce of willpower to leave my arm where it is.

"Why would a freak like you come here?" The voice is just as low, just as deep, and the word 'freak' jolts inside me and jostles around. My fingers cut into my pulse, finally releasing the side of the chair.

"I." I swallow. "I did what I did for a reason. I am a freak. I am worthless. But you can make me more than that." I didn't come here to beg. But something inside me cracks open. I can't be evil, maybe I'm a little mean, a little violent, but violence is a tool for revolution. I need to believe I'm part of a revolution. I need to believe that I'm the good guy. "Please make me more than that." It's the otherworldliness, I think, that rips away the mask. I'm not begging another person anymore, I'm begging something holding the strings. Fate, the universe, a higher power.

"Then maybe I have a place for you. And if you do well here, then perhaps we'll promote you to more strenuous work."

My heart leaps. "Yes?"

"How do you feel about PR work?"

I slam my hands back down on the armrests, crossing both legs at the knees. "PR Work?" I toss back my hair and smile. "I love it."