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When the dust settles, it seeps out with the rain and turns to mud. Two figures sit side-by-side amidst burnt shrapnel and debris. Everything saturates. Night air turns humid, breeze turns balmy. The concrete beneath them spills water from its cracks, soaks through the seat of Alex’s jeans. Imporous plastic saves his sneakers, but his cuffs and socks cling wet at the ankle.
In the corner of his view, Alex can see Washington’s sensible shoes looking no worse for wear. Just a faint sheen around the toes, moonlight reflecting off it. His wash-n-go suit probably wasn’t even torn. Alex shifts his gaze back to his hands, watches the last of the scales retract, runs his thumbs over now smooth, human skin.
“It should be fine now,” he says. He almost believes it.
Washington hums. Indifferent. Unreadable.
Alex keeps his eyes on his knees. His kneecaps jut out beneath denim, which would be threadbare and light as a blue sky, if not for all the mud. Just above that, his swollen stomach, still terraforming under his skin. His hoodie makes it look like nothing at all. Thick fabric pools at his waist, his shoulders, his palms, hiding the abyss.
It’s too big for him now. Or at least, it doesn’t fit. Maybe it’s his body that’s too small.
“I didn’t enjoy that, you know,” he says into the dark.
“I didn’t think you did,” Washington says. His voice is low. Solemn. Alex is sure that if he turned, Washington would be still and unmoved as always. Stone-faced. Mountain man. Special Agent Washington.
Absently, Alex chews his inner lip until the skin splits. On his tongue, the blood runs tangy and metallic. He swallows.
“Do you think I’m a monster?”
“Yes.” The reply is immediate. Matter-of-fact. Alex closes his eyes. Washington adds, softly, “But you’re not a bad person.”
“Same thing.”
“Bad people enjoy it,” Washington says, “A monster can’t control what it is.”
Alex slams his fist into the sidewalk, pain shooting up his arm. He does it again, and again, and a minute later Washington is grabbing his wrist, arresting any further attempt. Finally, Alex looks at the man.
Washington looks back, concern a nice front for whatever he must be feeling. Alex jerks in his grip.
“Is that why you’re here, then? To keep everyone safe while the monster is loose?”
“I’m here to keep you safe.”
Washington lets him go, and they return to their previous position. “Right,” Alex mumbles. His eyes skip over the rubble—wreckage, a voice corrects—and he rubs his fist over his face. The fist comes away wet, the face stings. Maybe it’s blood.
Washington doesn’t say anything else, just lets the silence hang. Other noises filter in—cicadas, a few idiotic birds chirping, dull traffic whining somewhere far off. Alex takes a breath, exhales through the lingering smell of smoke.
“Are you waiting for me to get it together so you can take me back to the office?” he says. “I’m assuming there’s paperwork.”
He hears Washington shift beside him. “I thought we could get some food first.”
“Oh, like colleagues? Celebrating a job well done?”
“That can’t have been calorie-neutral,” Washington says.
It wasn’t. Alex’s stomach gargles to confirm a moment later. He almost sighs.
Instead, he hoists himself up. His ass throbs as it leaves the pavement. He offers a hand to Washington without remembering it’s wet, covered with grime.
Washington takes it anyway. Their skin slides together, mud and callouses and whatever the residue from decaying batteries is called. Corrosive alloy, maybe. Washington uses him for balance to stand, wipes his hand on his coat, and a second later they’re falling into step back to where they parked.
Alex wants to say something. So many possibilities run through his mind. But he can’t find the words for any of them. Washington doesn’t say anything either. Alex wonders if this is routine for him, if he’s done this exact thing before. He doesn’t know.
Eventually, they come up to Washington’s car—a grey, state-issued Honda civic. Only the Feds get sedans, apparently. The upholstery inside isn’t even leather, it’s that fuzzy stuff that stains if you look at it wrong.
Ales says a small grace for it as he settles himself in the passenger seat, mud squelching under his pants. It makes a sound he sincerely hopes Washington can’t hear. He reclines as far as he can. Not far. The backseat of Washington’s car is always filled with stuff. Filing boxes, manila envelopes, assorted pens and tools. He stops when he feels the chair crushing a cardboard corner.
His case file is back there somewhere. Once, when Washington needed to stop for gas, he fished it out and read through it.
Alexander Hamilton, it said. Modified person. Known aliases include Alex (first name) and Faucette (last name). Confirmed threat, schedule II. Possible constructive use .
Nothing didn’t already know.
“Do you have a preference?” Washington asks as he turns the ignition. Alex tries to quash his annoyance.
“I feel like Waffle House is the most thematically appropriate.”
“Is that your preference?”
“Anything’s fine.”
He flops onto his side facing the window. Washington sighs.
“Buckle your seat belt.”
“Really,” Alex snaps.
There’s a moment of silence, then Washington backs up the car and navigates out of the parking lot.
Alex closes his eyes, listens to the road rumbling beneath him, and reflects once again how he got here: riding around in a Georgia state agent’s car, at the mercy of the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Greed, he decides. Maybe some fucked up moral righteousness. Though whose, exactly, he doesn’t know.
When they said he was under arrest, he thought it was all over. When they told him they weren’t charging, he assumed the FBI was on their way. Maybe Homeland Security. Goodbye Habeas Corpus, hello USA PATRIOT act. Preserving Life and Liberty at the cost of only a few of life’s unnecessary virtues, namely life and liberty.
It was fitting, in a way he was too out of it to appreciate at the time. Just where he should be. A terror, if not a terrorist. Right fucking category.
The car rolls over a bump, cabin shaking. Alex’s stomach roils.
Hardee’s neon red and yellow sign glows like a lighthouse in the distance, casts shadows over Washington’s face as they turn into the parking lot.
When they said Feds didn’t have to be involved, he knew there was a catch. He was right.
He thought he could live with it.
“Do you want to go in?”
“No,” Alex growls and rushes to add “Double burger, no onions, no tomatoes, extra pickles, and mustard. Large fries, extra large chocolate milkshake,” and then slams his head into his seat.
He ignores Washington’s nonresponse, tries to shut the whole world out. He won’t admit that it gets easier when the car starts moving, when Washington’s voice starts up again. It parts the silence like clouds breaking away from each other in the wind. Almost a lull, almost rocking Alex like a ship on water, like a body lost to sea.
Like the moon, bending gravity to bring in the tides, hiding half itself away, cloaked in darkness, just a sliver shining through a car window, somewhere outside Atlanta.
“We have someone who wants to talk to you. We’re offering you a deal. You should really consider taking it.”
The car bends around the restaurant. Three windows. Three quick conversations. Then there’s a bag of food being placed on the floor between them, the smell of frying oil the air. Alex could roll over and grab his but he doesn’t. He traces patterns in the fuzzy upholstery, feels the car drive on.
It’s not too long, this time, before they stop again, with the gentle jerk and reverb of lost acceleration, and then there’s nothing. Motionless. A seatbelt clicks.
“Alex?”
Alex squeezes his eyes closed, swallowing against the heart in his throat. His face is wet, he feels low. Filthy.
“Alex,” Washington says again, “You need to eat something, son.”
He lifts his head and forces himself to sit up, takes the bag from Washington’s outstretched hand. The overhead light has been switched on, and Alex blinks. Outside, it’s dark. They’re in a driveway, in some sort of residential neighborhood. Something sinks to the bottom of his stomach.
“Where are we?”
“My house,” Washington says, and Alex is too exhausted to yell about it. “Eat, take a bath. Get some sleep.”
“What about paperwork?”
“Worry about that in the morning.”
He follows Washington into the house. He’d look around the place, but he can’t bring himself to care what color the walls are or what kind of discount poster art Washington prefers. He keeps his eyes fixed on the man himself. His broad, sloping shoulders. The plane of his back. Where it curves as turns into hips. Washington slips his jacket off, which does have a hole burned through one wrist. With it gone, Alex can see the holster and nine-millimeter titanium bullet handgun on his belt. It shifts up and down as Washington hangs up the jacket, takes off his tie.
Then Washington removes the holster as well, and Alex watches as he slips the gun out, checks the safety, releases the magazine, puts it all in a steel box by the door. Washington looks back at him, and it seems like he’s about to say something. But he doesn’t, and they both wander into Washington’s kitchen.
They eat in silence. Alex doesn’t taste any of it, only sometimes noticing the way it churns with everything else that’s already down there. The milkshake is good—cold and thick. Almost soothing.
“You know,” he murmurs, once Washington has thrown away all the wrappers and returned with a glass of water. “You know I won’t be able to do that.”
He speaking so quietly, he’d wonder if Washington could hear him. But he knows he’s listening, even before the gentle, “What?” comes prompting him to continue.
“Sleep.”
He looks up at Washington, catches his dark eyes. “You know… you know what’s coming.”
“Why do you think you’re here?” Washington says.
It’s too simple. It’s too simple, and yet Alex doesn’t protest. Can already feel himself twisting.
“Do what you need to do,” Washington tells him, “Come find me when it’s over.”
He walks off down the hall, leaving Alex alone. Alex shudders, trembles until the shaking overcomes whatever’s been holding him together for the past two hours. The edge of it’s been dulled by the food, but it’s still there. Still sharp. Uncontrollable.
Alex closes his eyes and feels himself melting. He doesn’t want to do this, but then again, that doesn’t matter. He wishes it were different, but then again, it’s not. He wants to be free, but then again, he can’t be. Not anymore. The linoleum floor catches him as he drips into pieces. Deforming. Remixing. Being useful.
It hurts. But then again, it always does.
Alex stares at the ceiling with what remains of himself, until at last, it all falls away.
Sometimes, Alex wished he would just shut the fuck up.
“Hello Mr. Agent-I’ve-Been-Waiting-For,” he was saying to man the uniformer just sent it. Stop talking. “Pride of the department, I presume. Modern major general. Salutations, your excellency.”
The man’s shoes squeaked on the floor as he stopped in front of the table, looking almost amused.
“At ease, son.”
“Don’t call me son,” Alex snapped, immediately kicking himself. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
But the man’s voice was still affable when he asked, “What would you prefer to be called?”
This, for some reason, pissed Alex off even more. “My name.”
“Which is?”
“You gonna put it in your book?”
“It’s already there.”
They stared at each other. Finally, Alex relented, shifting his glare to the steel tabletop.
“Alex.”
“Hello, Alex. I’m Agent Washington with the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency,” the man said, soft southern accent coloring his words. “I’d bet you’d like out of those.”
Washington gestured to where Alex’s hands were cuffed to the table. Alex knew this was the good cop portion of the evening, but he did himself a favor and nodded. Washington popped them open.
Alex pulled his hands into himself and massaged his wrists, trying to restore blood flow, careful to avoid the fresh bruises.
“Though,” Washington continued, “From your file, it seems like you could have gotten out of them on your own.”
Washington dropped a manilla folder on the table. Alex tried to decide if he was allowed to see it.
“Yes, I’ve been reading that. Interesting stuff. You destroyed the entire chemistry building at Georgia State, nothing left but the foundation and some rubber flooring. How’d you manage that?”
Alex didn’t say anything. Just glared at the mirrored glass behind Washington. Probably someone on the other side was staring back.
“You don’t feel like telling me, or you don’t know.”
Alex swallowed.
“I’m going to guess you don’t know. You don’t quite know what’s happening to you. You just have this power, maybe urges you can’t control. Maybe it feels like hunger? You’ve been managing until now. Last night was the first time it got out of hand.”
“Quit speculating about me. You don’t know anything.”
“Perhaps not,” Washington conceded, voice gentle, concerned, “But ability like that, a lot of people in a lot of high up places would be invested in figuring out some of those answers.”
Alex’s gaze drifted around the room, trying to look at anything but the man in front of him. Just another cop. Do not trust.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but there were several ongoing experiments in nuclear fission and radiation in that building. Dangerous if you’re not wearing lead protection” Washington paused. “No trace of any of them, after you were finished. But your own radiation levels are lower than the general population.”
He hadn’t known that.
“Alex,” Washington said, and Alex clenched his jaw. “No known technology in the world can do that. That radiation disappeared as if it never even existed. It breaks every known physical law.”
“You can’t charge me for that.”
“No, just destruction of property.”
Alex looked up at him. The man still looked goddamn amused.
“So what? Charge me, or pronounce me guilty of Terrorism to this great nation and hand me over to Big Brother.”
The glint in Washington’s eye faded. “See, we’d rather not get the federal government involved.”
“Why?”
“Why would we?” Washington threw back, “It’s not good for us, and it’s not good for you.”
Don’t pretend we’re in the same boat, Alex wanted to say. But he kept his mouth shut as Washington went on.
“We’d like to make you a deal. Do a few things for us, use your powers for good, so to speak. Demolition mostly. Nuclear waste, defunct power plants. A sanitary method of disposal, and food for you.”
Washington ducked his head, trying to catch Alex’s eye. “You know you need to let this out, Alex. You can’t control that. You’d have access to medical monitoring, supervision on assignments. We can transfer you to Atlanta, get you set up with an apartment, enrolled in university again.”
Alex forced out an incredulous snort. “You’re asking me to trade my freedom to the State of Georgia in exchange for access to basic human rights.”
“We’re offering you a chance at a normal life, away from federal observation and containment.”
With that, Washington fell silent. Alex looked away and swallowed against the inevitable truth. It was this or the Feds.
“You said there’d be supervision.”
“Check-ins with GEMHSA, weekly or bi-weekly. And you’d be accompanied in the field by an agent, make sure everything goes alright. No one gets hurt.”
“And who would that be?”