One-Shot: LMD

[Talanic he/him]

Just for fun.  This is one of my stories from a couple years ago that I felt like revisiting today.  It was for an anthology that - sadly -  didn't really get off the ground.

 

 

*****

 

They say that one in three people got hit by the Wave.  I disagree on two counts.

 

First, I think that the percentage was higher than that.  Second, I prefer to think of us – the ones who changed – as surfing on the Wave, while everyone else constitutes the people who got hit by it.

 

Although, I do have a job that exposes me to Wavers on a regular basis.  My estimates could be skewed – I know what you're thinking.

 

No, really.  I know what you're thinking.  That's what I do.  My name's Ally, and I'm a telepath.  

 

Okay, that's not my real name.  I'm not using any real names here.  Not of my job, or my boss, or anything.  It would invite trouble.  I mean, sure, you could try to get a SN to track down where my story hit the web, but odds are very good that he has a little stubling saying “Hello World!” in our daycare's computers.

 

You heard me right.  I work for a daycare.  I'll call it “Little Monsters,” because we specifically cater to Wavers.  Sentient networks, werewolves, robots, tentacle beasts, dragons, hecatoncheres, kappa, harpies, cyclopi, orcs, and plain old humans – if we can get it him/her/it in the door, we'll take care of him/her/it.  It's what we do.

 

I'm the receptionist.  At least, that's my official duty.  Part of it.  See, as far as telepaths go, I'm a pretty decent one – at least an 8, if you use the Hauptmann scale, but only a 3 on the Stanley Precog.    I may be sitting at the front desk (well, I'm not right now – I need peace and quiet if I'm going to concentrate enough to write) but I'm also monitoring everyone within a quarter mile radius.  There've been a few threats against us in the past, and more than once, people have come up trying to make trouble.  

 

We've even been attacked a couple times.  One guy came up with a bunch of silver knives...but I'm getting ahead of myself.  I often do when thinking about threats to the kids – that's usually how my precog manifests.  

 

We have a lot of precautions in place, both to protect the kids from the outside and from each other.  There's wolfsbane in the medical kits, holy water, neosporin...anything useful for healing or shaking off an inherent curse.  There's antivenom for every type of kid we have, and an enchanted mirror for when Janice has to take off her veil.  Thankfully, that doesn't happen often.  

 

Anyway.  Austin's the boss.  The whole thing was his idea.  I think it was a way for him to tell Janice that he still loved her, even after the Wave.  See, she's surfing it now, but him...well, he's why I think the estimate is off.

 

She became what people often call a medusa.  The term's wrong.  Medusa's a specific example of a creature called a gorgon.  Just try telling people that and it's as if you tried glue-on ear tips and are calling yourself Galadriel.  Nobody cares, but I digress.

 

They were engaged when the Wave hit, and suddenly she can turn people to stone with a look.  It's worse than it sounds, though; the snakes that make up her hair are venomous, and she can't control them.  Or not well enough yet.  And there's other nasty surprises in a gorgon's body.

 

They're married now, even though he has scars – hidden by the hairline – where those snakes bit him.  He's devoted to her, but can barely touch her safely.  

 

As I said, I think that's why he devotes himself to the kids.  Nearly every child here is a second-gen Waver, and he adores them.  I can assure you, it's genuine affection.  But it goes beyond that.

 

He went out of his way to hire Wavers, too.  After I came out of the braincase, I couldn't land a job for rust.  More, laws got passed that more or less outlawed any ways that I might profit off of my powers.  The cops didn't need another lie detector, the Skeptic's Association had already awarded the million dollars, and I couldn't fish for stock tips or other 'buried treasures'.  Austin kept me from starving.

 

And he hired Nicky.  Nicky's our first line of defense for getting the kids to play nice with each other, and our last line of defense for outside threats.  His Waveform has just enough innate psi that I can broadcast to him if there's a problem; we make a great team, even if he's only able to work the later hours.  He's seventeen; this is his first job, and the wave hit when he was five.    He's a great kid, or semblance of one.  But who else in the world would hire a vampire that looks like he's in kindergarten?

 

There's a few others, but Nicky, Austin, Janice and I are the ones who're probably going to stay for the rest of our lives.  If we can.  I might not be able to...

 

It can be hard work.  And I'm not referring to the time that Justin, Aaron, Timmy, Larry, Pete, Alphonse and Ricky managed to climb inside the walls.  Coaxing a four-year-old hydra out of an air duct may have been the most awkward three hours of my life.  No, the hard times are when people are getting hurt.

 

Like the guy with the knives.  He came in and he was wearing something that blocked me from reading him.  It was a red flag.  Walking into a daycare center wearing a mind shield is like waiting in line at a bank while wearing a trenchcoat and a ski mask.  I alerted Nicky – but it was daytime, and he couldn't come to the lobby.  

 

The guy had pulled a knife when Austin burst in and ploughed straight into him.  Austin's mind – you won't understand unless you're a telepath and even then you probably won't unless you encounter someone like him – his mind was golden.  Like he was seeing everything perfectly clearly and knew what to do.  The guy was down before anything happened; it was incredible.

 

I've only seen Austin go golden like that one other time.  There was a little troll kid here, named Sven.  It's a daycare center; you watch for certain signs on the kids.  Bruises, bloody noses, and ways they act – and think – around adults.  Well, Sven had none of the physical signs but all of the behavioral ones.  I could read him well enough to figure it out.

 

Trolls heal fast.  Really, really fast.  Fast enough that we'd never find physical signs of abuse, so long as his bones didn't get broken and heal wrong.  

 

I took Austin into the business office and told him what I'd learned.  He went gold again, and didn't stop all the rest of the day.  I knew where he was going that night and I was scared for him, but I knew I couldn't stop him.

 

I don't know exactly how Austin got Pete's father to confess to the police.  I've tried not to read too much off of Austin about what he did; suffice to say that regeneration can be a double-edged sword, and dislocated limbs leave no marks on a full-grown troll.  

 

What I did look into, though, was how Austin managed to do it.  He's not a Waver.  He's just a human (or so he – and everyone else – thinks) and he wasn't in the military.  Never studied martial arts or street fighting.  He's in great physical shape but I've confirmed that he doesn't actually set aside time for exercise.  I thought he might be a superhero Waver for a while, but I think I finally figured it out.  The final clue was that the table in the business office is round.

 

Now, I've never been a student of great literature or anything, but once I had the idea, I studied up on the concept.  He's in a tragic romance, guards the innocent with the strength of a pure heart and force of arms, and knows a monster when he sees one.    He's a Waver all right; his Waveform is a Hero.  Not a superhero, a Hero.  Possibly the archetype itself.  There's certified mad scientists walking around, wizards and the like, why wouldn't there be Heroes?  

 

Specifically, I'm afraid that he's like Lancelot.  And if he is, then would that make Janice his Guinevere or would it be someone else?  Could it be me?  Because sure as hell, I love him.  And if I stay around, he might love me.  And even though I think he's a Hero, I know he's not perfect; if I, knowing what I think I know, would give into temptation, he might too – and betraying Janice would destroy him.

 

The only thing that keeps me from leaving to prevent that is that I don't know that I'm his Guinevere.  The stories might just be stories; he might just be a really good man.  I might be thinking too much, trying to make him a Waver when he isn't.  

 

Or someone else might be his Guinevere. I'm keeping my mind open to spot her.  If I do, the moment I know who she is, Nicky and I will be visiting her with a baseball bat.

 

[Seonid he/him]

This is an excellent piece, Talanic.

 

Tangentially, do you have any more Modern Magic Thief stuff done? Or are you still in the editing/revising phase on that?

[Talanic he/him]

Actually, I need to hurl myself back into that, and I'd been considering a post about it.  Certain circumstances have come up - I need to acquire a cover and do the editing in order to submit for the Kindle Scout program before it gets too popular.  Right now I'd only be competing with about a dozen other books, as opposed to thousands of others...