Thomas wheeled Peter out across the parking lot up to a large black Volkswagen Superkombi III van. When they reached the door on the passenger side, Thomas stepped around and opened it. Peter stood up carefully, but he still didn’t have his balance and fell forward. Grabbing frantically for the heavy door jamb, he managed to steady himself.
Then he turned his head suddenly, catching his reflection in the door window. No one at the hospital had shown him a mirror, and now he knew why.
His teeth were huge—two massive canines protruded from his lower gums and overlapped his upper lip. He had enormous yellow eyes and a monstrous head with large, pointed ears. Peter’s mind could not accept that he was looking at himself. Try as he might, he couldn’t get past the notion that the glass was some sort of optical trick.
“Well,” said Thomas beside him. “There it is. You ready? Let’s get going.”
They worked together for several minutes, and soon Peter was inside the van. It immediately struck him that few cars were spacious enough to comfortably seat someone like him.
Thomas loaded the wheelchair into the back of the van, then climbed into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. He said nothing, and Peter was content to remain transfixed by his reflection in the glass. He was pulled out of his thoughts only twice, when groups of people spotted him and threw bottles and plasticans at the van.
“I think I was safer in the hospital.”
“Well, this is why nature gave you such a thick hide. So you can take it.”
“Why should I have to take it?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have to take it. But you will. You’re in this world, you play by the world’s rules. World says there are stupid people. There it is.”
“Don’t we make our own rules?” A word came back to him: laws. “I thought that was the point of laws.”
“Well… First, who makes the laws, Peter? People. People make the laws. So you don’t escape the world hiding behind the laws of men. Nature’s still there. She said, ‘I’ll let there be stupid people,’ and the stupid people can make a law just as well as a kind person.
“Second, even good laws can be ignored. You can’t legislate intelligence. You can’t legislate kindness. There have always been stupid people, and I think there will always be stupid people.”
“My doctor said he thinks people will get smarter.”
“He may be right. I might believe the same thing someday. I’m only as old as I am. I’ll change, I’ll learn more. Who knows?”
The van pulled into a driveway, which led up to a small, old-fashioned house, built of wood and ornate metal. Peter didn’t recognize it. “Is this where I live?”
“I think so…” Thomas pulled out a book whose many worn pages were covered with notes written in a tiny scrawl. “This is the address they gave me. It doesn’t look right?”
“No, I’m sorry. This is where I live. I forgot. We only moved here three weeks ago. Or, I guess, seven weeks ago. For my father’s job at the U. of C.” He raised his hand to his head. “I’m so stupid now. It’s like thinking through cotton.”
Thomas turned to Peter and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sound stupid to me. What makes you say that?”
“Well, I’m a troll. I’m stupider than I was before.”
“Peter, your brain rebuilt itself along with your body. It’s different. And yes, to put it bluntly, trolls do tend to be mentally slower than pure humans. But when you were a human, you—” he flipped open the book again, “—you pulled an IQ score of 184 and a GPH of 18. We don’t know what you’re like yet. You won’t be as smart as you were, but we still don’t know the whole story.”
Thomas’ words disturbed Peter. He had begun to take comfort in the notion of his stupid mind; he wouldn’t have to expect much from his life or his future, and this matched his father’s outlook. Unpleasant, perhaps, but certain.
“Now, you’ve got two choices. You can think you know everything there is to know about yourself. Or you can live, observe, and discover.” Peter remained silent. “It’s not a decision you have to make right now. It’s one of those life things.” Thomas winked.
As Thomas helped Peter up to the house, a few of the neighbors came out to stare in awe at the troll walking up the front path.
Once inside, Peter looked around while Thomas went back out to the van. He noticed some new furniture—heavy stuff with sturdy metal frames. Cold and hard. Furniture just for him.
Thomas returned with a stack of clothing Peter’s father had bought—shirts and pants and shoes all tailored for a troll. Peter guessed such clothes had cost a lot of money. He felt bad that his father had to pay out such expenses, but also wondered what trolls who had little money did for clothes. He asked Thomas.
“Good question. There’s not a huge market for clothes the size of orks and trolls, so manufacturers don’t produce it. The bigger metahumans end up having to stitch lots of clothes together. The colors and fabrics don’t always match. Looks sloppy.” Peter cocked his head to one side, surprised by the comment. It seemed uncharacteristically critical. “Hey, I’m not saying they are sloppy,” Thomas told him. “Most of them are doing the best they can to survive. But in a country like UCAS, where the average citizen does pretty well, someone who looks like he’s just barely surviving appears sloppy.”
After Peter and Thomas had stowed the clothes away, Thomas said, “So, do you want to rest or do you want to get to work?”
“Work,” said Peter.
They worked. Peter walked and walked and walked. He walked from the front of the house to the back of the house. He walked up the stairs and down the stairs. He found Thomas kind, but disturbing, as if he expected a great deal from Peter. More than Peter had expected from himself before he became a troll. The sooner Peter could walk without Thomas’ help, the sooner Thomas would leave, and the sooner Peter could relax.
They continued until late into the night. The walking tired Peter, but every time he thought he couldn’t go on, he discovered still more strength than he thought he had, and went on.
After the fourth hour, he realized he wanted his father to come home from the university to find him putting enormous effort into his rehabilitation. But when his father had not returned by midnight, Peter guessed that he wouldn’t come home anymore that night. He remembered it was commonplace for William Clarris to work late on his researches.
“I’m tired, Thomas,” Peter said, his face revealing the disappointment over his father. “I’m ready for bed.”
Thomas looked into Peter’s face, searching. “Sure,” he said, amiably. After helping Peter into bed, Thomas began to massage him again.
Outside Peter heard sirens and glass breaking, but the sounds came only sporadically. The citizens of Hyde Park paid well for tight security, and they got it. The riots barely touched the borders of their neighborhood.
But it wasn’t the security guards outside that made Peter feel so safe. It was Thomas, whose touch somehow made it all right to have the skin of a troll.
When Peter opened his eyes, he was greeted by the sight of shelves full of optical chips facing him across the room. It took a moment to recognize them and remember they were his. Chips about cells and DNA and literature and history. But he couldn’t remember in detail what they were about. He couldn’t remember reading any of them.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Peter said expectantly, thinking it must be his father.
It was Thomas who entered. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Again Peter didn’t hide his disappointment.
“What is it?” asked Thomas.
“Where’s my father?”
“He left very early. He said he didn’t want to wake you.”
“Hmmm.” Peter glanced at the shelf.
“You read a lot.”
“I guess. I can’t remember any of it, though.”
Thomas nodded, but apparently decided to let the matter drop. “Most people don’t read much at all these days.”
Yes, Peter remembered that now. Kids had made fun of him in elementary school because his father wanted him to be literate, not just functionally literate, or “iconerate,” the new term for those who went through life using only symbols and key words for written communication.
“I wonder if I liked reading?”
“From the number of opticals, I’d say you did.”
“I might have been doing it just to please my father.”
“Oh.” Thomas stepped over to the shelf and looked at the titles printed on the plastic casings. “Well, I bet you liked some of these… Treasure Island…The Wizard of Oz.”
“Kids called me a lit-dip for reading so much. They said flats and trid were better.”
“Different.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think you’ll try reading again?”
Peter hesitated, afraid to say the words. Then, “Thomas. I don’t think I can read. I think I forgot how.” As soon as the words left his mouth, his chin began to tremble. He didn’t remember much about his reading, but he knew it had set him apart from most other people, from other kids, who were content to be consumers of information, not makers of it. It was bad to be so different, but it had also made him special. It was something that he knew was his.
“You can learn again if you want.”
“What if I can’t?”
“I know you can learn to read. Any troll can do that, and I suspect you’re brighter than most trolls, because you were a genius as a pure human.”
“But what if I can’t?”
“If it’ll make you feel better, you don’t have to. You can learn a few key words, a few symbols. Few people choose to read these days. They watch the trid and flat for news and entertainment. They use icon and voice-based computers to move data around for their employers. Programmers are literate in the comp language, but not much else. The only people who have to worry about reading are the ones who make it all work. They have to know how to read to keep things going, to improve the tech. But it’s rare. You can get by without reading if you want. You’ll learn a few words, like STOP, and you’ll see them just like icons, and that’ll be that.”
“You’re tricky.”
Thomas smiled. “What do you mean?”
“Your words are…reassuring, but there’s something in…the way you speak, underneath it all… that’s saying I shouldn’t simply become iconerate.”
“True, true, true. I’m a firm believer in everyone reading. Years ago, when the corps took over primary support of the public school system, all the reading programs—well, the entire curriculum—was changed to a more ‘vocational’ approach. To get a return on their money, the corps decided they wanted people to learn only as much as they needed to carry out a job.
“But what the corps didn’t know, or didn’t care about, is that perspective only comes from knowing more than you need to know. People are taught a word these days, and that’s it. No context. ‘Why do pure humans throw rocks at orks and trolls?’ and the answer is, ‘Racism.’ A single-word definition like ‘Racism’ might as well be an icon. Icons give brief, quick, incomplete ideas. They pack a punch—but that’s all. That’s what you see on the news. They just flash nouns on the screen. ‘Racism’ says the sign, and then the footage rolls, showing people attacking one another. But no one knows any more than they did before.”
“But some people read. I did. You do.”
“Both our parents are from the upper class, Peter. They could afford the better schools, and because of that we were singled out for broader educations. Society still needs some people who are active readers. We’re it.”
Peter became lost in thought, and Thomas said, “Sorry, for the lecture. I have this thing about the importance of education.” He stepped up to the bed. “Ready for the tensions to be rolled away?”
Peter settled deeper into the bed, the memory of yesterday’s massage already calming him.
Peter sighed deeply as Thomas rubbed his back. When he reached Peter’s feet, Thomas said, “Roll over.”
Peter did so, this time by himself, his eyes comfortably closed. He opened them briefly when Thomas’ hands began to knead his shoulders, and what he saw stunned Peter. Thomas’ eyes were a deep yellow, the pupils vertical and black. His face was expressionless, but his skin had a cool green pallor, looking more like scales than flesh. Peter experienced an instant repulsion and gasped, then slid away from Thomas.
Thomas remained in his dazed state for a moment, then the green faded from his flesh and his eyes returned to normal. “Peter? What is it, Peter?”
“What are you?”
Thomas blinked twice. “I’m a shaman,” he said. “Of the Snake totem. Didn’t your father or the doctor tell you?”
Peter was still breathing fast, but not so much as a moment ago. He remembered something about that—shamans taking on the characteristics of their totem when using magic. “My father. I haven’t spoken with him for days.”
Thomas closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I would have told you. When he called me to say he wouldn’t be able to pick you up, he said you knew all the details.”
“I only knew you were coming to get me.”
Thomas studied Peter carefully with the same curious look he’d given him the day before. “Did he tell you he wouldn’t be here?”
“Sure. Yes.”
“Hmmm. Well, I’m sorry for frightening you. I can see why you’d be spooked.”
“I wasn’t spooked.”
Thomas smiled. “You don’t let much out, do you?”
“No.”
“Listen. I was drawing on magic when I massaged you. It… It’s a ritual I built myself, for people who have gone through what you have. It soothes the muscles, strengthens them without tightening them.”
“Why did you look like that?”
“My totem is Snake. Snake is a healer. When I use the magic, I take on aspects of Snake, because, well, I’m drawing on Snake for my magic. I look different because, at that moment, when using magic, I am different.” He looked embarrassed. “It’s hard to understand unless you actually do it.”
Peter began to relax. He’d never dealt with a shaman before, but Thomas seemed nice enough. The idea of them had always frightened him. Shamans seemed even stranger than mages, who at least had a semblance of scientific rigidity about them.
Scientific rigidity. Now where had that idea come from?
He remembered that shamans all had totems, and that all totems were animals. Each had different qualities. Coyote is the trickster. Dog is fiercely loyal. He remembered a question he’d often thought about, but had never gotten around to researching. “Why is Snake a healer? A lot of snakes are dangerous.”
“So they are,” said Thomas, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “And healing is dangerous as well. Today, most people think that all they have to do is take this pill or that treatment. They don’t realize that there are always risks. We don’t know everything. We’ll never know everything. But people don’t want to hear that. They want simple answers for everything.
“An obvious example. You have a cold. The doctor prescribes an antibiotic. You take it. You’re allergic to it. You get a whole new problem. Perhaps you die. Or let’s say you go to the hospital for surgery—open heart surgery. Routine today, but never, ever, completely safe. Something can always go wrong.”
Peter sat up on the bed. He liked the way Thomas spoke; somewhat disturbing, but open and direct.
“At the end of the last century things were very bad with medicine. Patients expected miracles, and doctors, in their pride, fanned those expectations.” He turned and smiled at Peter. “It was the only way to justify charging exorbitant fees. Everyone wanted everything controlled and perfect. When something went wrong, it represented a disaster for the entire medical profession, but it was simply a normal phenomenon. Normal bad. I’m not saying healers should be sloppy, mind you. But the snake bite, it’s always there.”
“Even with magic?”
Thomas looked down at the floor. “Especially with magic.” He looked to see how interested Peter actually was before continuing. “Magic, especially the shamanistic tradition—well, it’s weird. It requires that you look deep inside. Especially Snake. Snake lives in the cracks in the walls of an old building. Snake lives in small caves in the desert. Snake gets in everywhere and wants to know everything. Snake doesn’t want any secrets kept away from her. So if you’re going to follow Snake, then you’ve got to go within.” He tapped his chest. “That’s some serious healing, too, and if there’s one place where the venom is very scary, it’s when you have to learn about yourself.”
Peter thought of what made him most afraid, and then suddenly he thought of…Denise! The girl he’d met at the party. “Oh, no!” He fell back down onto the bed.
“What is it?”
“I forgot that I was supposed to call somebody. I was too busy turning into a troll.”
Thomas laughed. “Well, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“She.”
“Ah. Well, even so.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, I won’t call her.”
“Because you stood her up?”
“Because I’m a troll.”
“Hmmm.”
“You know, Peter—”
“What?” he said irritably. Suddenly he found Thomas’ simple wisdom annoying.
“Nothing. Why don’t we get to work?”
They did.
When they broke for lunch, Thomas turned on the trideo to find the local stations abuzz with the effects of the previous night’s rioting. A newscaster reported LIVE from State Street in the Loop, the heart of Chicago’s downtown district, bounded by the elevated train lines that carried the city’s commuters north, south, and west.
She recapped: Pure humans had raced through the streets, searching out metahumans, dragging them out of doorways, even breaking into homes, then pummeling them to death.
In turn, metahumans had killed pure humans. Pure humans: she used the term casually.
The city’s security forces, both private and public, had, for the most part, turned their weapons against the metahumans. City Hall had already announced an investigation into the excessive force used by the security teams.
Peter’s mouth was dry. He set his sandwich down on the table.
“Peter?”
“That could be me. I could have died.”
“No doubt about it,” said Thomas, who then calmly took another bite. He seemed to relish the taste of the roast beef, but Peter had suddenly lost his appetite.
The house rattled, slowly at first, more like a deep rumbling, and then with more force. It lasted only moments, but then they heard the screams coming from the trideo. On the screen, they could see that the camera was shaking wildly as the reporter looked around for the source of the loud explosions. Then she turned her back to the camera and looked up. her hands falling suddenly to her sides. It must have been her lapel mike picking up her strained voice: “Oh, spirits.” The camera operator swung the camera in the direction of the reporter’s gaze.
Fiery red explosions billowed through the walls of the IBM Tower, once called the Sears Tower. The skyscraper rocked and shook, then it began to disintegrate, toppling to the ground.
Its collapse was almost pure. The nine sections that made up the tower began to slide away from one another. First the eight subtowers around the central tower began to fall, slowly at first, then picking up speed as the central subtower followed. All nine fell faster and faster and faster, until the whole structure vanished behind the buildings along State Street.
A moment later flames erupted from the spot where the towers had fallen. Then explosions ripped through one building after another along State Street.
The reporter whirled toward the camera. Her face betrayed panic, but she fought to keep her voice under control. “Explosions are ripping—”
Then the camera fell to the ground, where it lay on its side, still soaking up the disaster. The sound was cut off.
“The gas lines,” Thomas said. Peter looked at him. Thomas’ flesh had become almost gray. “The gas lines will rip through the whole area.”
When Peter looked back to the trideo, he saw the Loop awash in flames. People were falling out of windows, rushing out of doors, running every which way, their clothes and flesh on fire. Then the image turned to static. Turning his head to look north through the kitchen window, Peter saw that already a thick cloud of black smoke was gathering above downtown Chicago.
“I have to go,” said Thomas.
“What?”
Thomas stood. “I have to go. I’m needed.”
“Please, Thomas, don’t leave me alone.”
“You’ll be all right. Lock the doors.” He walked out of the kitchen.
Peter stumbled as he chased after him. “You’re supposed to be here! This is your job!”
“I have a clause in my contract that allows me to leave under just such circumstances,” Thomas said grimly. “This is what I do. I make sure to build it into the laws that bind me. Stay here. Lock the doors. Stay calm. I’ll be back.”