"Sarah, you
never
bother me. Okay? I’ll
always
be here for you."
"Thanks, Lincoln. I love you."
"I love you, too. Tommy," he called back over his shoulder, "can you get the children’s aspirin out of the bathroom for me?"
"Sure, Linc," the boy answered, already on his way.
"Do you want me to wait?"
"Nah, I’m okay. You can go back now."
"All right. Don’t take more than two. If you don’t feel better after a while, send Tommy back out to get me, okay?"
She nodded, then reached out for a hug. Lincoln leaned forward in response ...
careful now, big fella, don’t squeeze her
too
tightly
... and very gently patted her shoulders. Sarah looked confused for a moment, then Tommy was back with the medicine, and Lincoln returned to the kitchen.
what’s the matter, Linc? all she wanted was a hug
"Everything all right?" Ben asked as he slipped back into his seat.
"Yeah. Who’s dealin’?"
PCA
A couple of hours later, things began to wind down. The cards were set aside, and Carl lit up a cigar while Deak told them all the latest rumors of buyouts and cutbacks and layoffs. Lincoln quietly moved to the sink and began rinsing all the plates — Sarah and Tommy had helped him make spaghetti for the dinner, and the guys had arrived before they could properly clean up.
"Hey, did you hear who just turned paranormal?"
Lincoln almost dropped the glass he was holding. All he could do was freeze in place for a moment until his breathing returned to normal.
"Who?" Ben asked.
"Billy Acuna," Deak stated knowingly.
"Acuna?" Carl spat around his smoke. "No shit?"
"No shit."
"What’s his new trick?"
"Huh? Oh, I dunno. Somethin’ low key, like growin’ all his hair back overnight."
"Class One or Two?"
"Ben, what kinda stupid question is
that
? How could someone be a Class One
hair-grower
? Turn into a big fuzzball or somethin’?"
"Hey, since the White Flash, you never can tell, right?"
"I guess."
"Seems to me," Carl held forth, "that if there really was a God, then all the women in town would suddenly pop out with Class One tits."
They all laughed, except for Lincoln, who was just now slowly returning to his chore. He hoped he looked fine on the outside, because he sure as hell didn’t
feel
like it.
"Yeah, well," Deak continued, "seems to
me
that if there really was a God, then the White Flash never woulda
happened
."
Ben waved it away. "What will be, will be."
"I don’t think the guy who wrote that song had the
rogues
in mind at the time."
"Whatever. I’m just sayin’ that most of the paranormals ain’t no bigger deal than Billy Acuna. So the guy’s not
bald
anymore. So what?"
"So what?" Deak returned with indignity. "Sure, Billy’s gettin’ hair don’t matter, but what about the bastard who brought that wall down on those school kids? Or the winged freak who flew through the engine of that seven-forty-seven last year? That’s a lotta dead people who shouldn’t
be
dead."
"I’m not arguin’ with
that
, you moron. I’m just sayin’ people make too big a deal about it
in general
. So there’s seven more big stars in the sky at night. So Acuna’s got hair again. You know damn well that for every Class One, there’s like a hundred or so Class Twos. And half of
those
seem like they should be ‘Class Three’ or somethin’."
"Now what
I’d
love," Carl said thoughtfully, "is a woman who can give a Class One
blowjob.
"
Ben laughed hard. Deak rolled his eyes. "Jesus, Carl, we’re actually tryin’ to have an intellectual conversation here. Why don’t you can the jokes for a change?"
Carl shrugged. "What makes you think I was
jokin
’?"
Lincoln tried to throw in a chuckle just to follow along, but they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to him at this point.
"Whatever. I just think the freaks should be locked away the minute they turn so that God’s normal folk can live their lives in peace."
"I’ll remind you of that," Ben said, "when you turn paranormal with the superhuman ability to shrink your penis."
"Couldn’t happen," Carl offered. "Can’t shrink it much more than it already
is
."
Carl and Ben laughed as Deak fumed. "Whatever." Then his attention honestly shifted elsewhere. "What’s that sound?"
They all held off the chatter long enough to listen. Sure enough, an odd squeaking noise was bouncing through the small kitchen.
"Linc? You know what that is?"
Lincoln started to tell them that he did not when his eyes drifted down ... then nearly bugged out of his head.
He was crushing his large stainless steel pot in his bare hands!
The act itself wouldn’t be particularly stunning anymore, except that he’d had no idea at all that he was doing it. He quickly eased the pressure and shrugged as casually as he could manage.
"It’s nothing," he said over his shoulder, afraid to let them see his face. "The water pipes do it from time to time. See? It’s already gone."
Carl and Deak accepted that at face value and dismissed it. Ben continued to stare at his young friend’s tense shoulders for a moment longer, then he, too, let it go.
"Hey, Deak, are you
sure
that Acuna went paranormal and didn’t just buy a toupe or somethin’?"
"Shut up, Carl."
Why?
Lincoln thought as he stared down at the crushed pot in his traitorous hands.
Why did this have to happen to
me
?
The pot offered no answer.
Lincoln slipped it underneath the sink, then forced a nonchalant expression onto his face and returned to the table.
VORTEX
Steve underwent surgery for his initial implants later that week. Alan made sure that every staff member involved in the procedure signed contracts of confidentiality, and the core team of "surgeons" mainly consisted of bio-technicians from
Davison Electronics
’ cybernetics division — Steve’s optical nerves were in relatively good shape and his visual cortex was completely unscathed, so the procedure’s purely medical demands where not as precipitous as they could have been.
Even so, Alan saw to it that only a trusted few knew the patient’s name.
Steve then spent the next week in recovery, with a full compliment of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. In that time, his mechanical eyes remained covered,
inert
. He roused every morning with the same anxieties: What if they didn’t work? Was he to reach so high, only to stay blind? Alan was risking it all in order to keep things quiet, to give him privacy until he presented himself to the PCA. Could he handle the responsibility he was taking on? How could he, when he hadn’t even let himself feel the true pain of his loss yet?
To his credit, Alan spent at least an hour with Steve every single day. The two of them talked about whatever crossed Steve’s mind, and Alan soon became a comforting voice in the darkness. He never pressured Steve to talk about his feelings, but Steve knew that he could if he so desired. He just ... wasn’t ready.
PCA
A
click
, a
beep
, and a ticklish
whirl
behind Steve’s temples, and Alan pulled the device — whatever it was — away from the bridge of his nose. "All right, Steve," he whispered, "open your eyes."
NO I can’t I can’t open my eyes if I open my eyes and I’m BLIND I don’t know what I’ll do I don’t want to be blind
Slowly ...
very
slowly ... Steve opened his eyes. At first his breath caught and his heart stopped at the confused, blurred images, but before the panic set in, his vision snapped into focus.
"Weird," he whispered.
"I’m sorry?"
Steve turned to him. It felt strange to
see
Alan again — somehow, Steve had come to associate him with just his voice, like some sort of omnidirectional spirit. Hell, he’d even forgotten how much Alan looked like the actor Charles Grodin.
Steve stared at both Alan and the
Davison
bio-technician, absorbing the images before him.
"It’s like ..." he grasped for the correct words to describe what he was seeing, "it’s
incredibly
clear and sharp, but I can tell ... it, it’s ... I guess it’s sort of
like I’m looking at
computer generated images
, like in the movies. I mean, everything’s three-D, and the color and resolution are fantastic ... but it’s still not ...
quite
... real." He squinted, then crossed his eyes. Now that the picture had cleared, he found he couldn’t force it out of focus even when he tried.
"Interesting," Alan mumbled, absently running his fingers through his thinning hair. "I’d never thought about that. When we tested them, we
were
looking at digital images on a computer monitor. If it bothers you—"
"It’s fine," Steve interrupted. He gazed at every object in the room, examining his surroundings to the smallest detail. He was already growing accustomed to the difference. In fact, everything he looked at now leaped out at him with a clear definition far superior to his old eyesight, and he’d always had 20/20 vision. "Can I get up?"
"Certainly." Alan nodded at the med-tech, who lowered the safety bars on the side of the bed. Mindful this time of the IV still attached to his left hand, Steve swung his legs around and stood. He stretched, arching his back, then bending at the waist until his face rested against his legs.
"Wow," the tech commented. "You’re pretty limber."
Steve grinned as he straightened, unaware of how intently he stared into the man’s face. "I assume there’s a mirror in the bathroom?"
The tech nodded.
Pulling the IV stand with him, Steve moved around the corner, stepped close to his reflection, and inspected his new eyes. Funny, but he never asked what
they
would look like. He discovered they were a striking steel-blue, with pure whites without a hint of bloodshot. To his mild surprise, he liked the blue better than his former hazel.
"Steve," Alan called, "we need to run a few tests."
"Be there in a second," Steve said, still marveling at the company’s work, not to mention the surgeons’, who left no scars he could see.
By the time he returned, Alan had dismissed the technician.
I guess his security rating only goes so far
, he thought.
Better get used to that kind of thing, Davison, if you’re going to follow up on this cloak-and-dagger stuff.
"What do I do?" he asked.
"Sit on the bed." Steve sat, and Alan again placed the eye-band device against the bridge of his nose. Steve felt that light, ticklish feeling return, and he assumed correctly that contact had been established. Alan adjusted a dial, then said, "Now, I want you to think ‘thermal.’ Don’t just think the
word
, really
concentrate
on the concept.
Push
the idea of ‘heat’ in your mind."