So, reposting here for continuity. Welcome back literature.cafe!
I really don’t want to do this. I need some fucking valium. Maybe some meth to counter that fuzziness. No, coke, definitely coke; I get too assholey on meth, even at low doses. Yeah, a valium, a snort of powder, then a toke or three to smooth them together. Then snag some of Max’s fancy scotch. Need to get some addiction built up to offload, I can’t rely on finding good shit at shelters any more. Everything around here, I’ve hoovered up and used. Not like I can weaponize jock itch or scabies.
Fuck. I’m just delaying the inevitable. I hate the mental shit. Hate it even worse when the patient has to be babied into even considering it. Shit. Here goes nothing.
“So, uh, Elaine? Or am I supposed to stick with Generator?”
“You’re the doctor, Doctor.”
“I’m not a fucking doctor.”
“Yes, I know, but your little glare is so adorable.”
“Lady, are you ever going to stop fucking with me?”
“No. Not likely. You killed Nuke. He was my oldest friend, you scabby little asshole. I will absolutely fuck with you every day I’m stuck here. I will absolutely fuck with you every chance I get. Now just imagine how it would be if I didn’t like you.”
“Fucking hell. Look, you know damn good and well Eternus killed Nuke; I was just the bullet he used. Not that I really give a fuck, Nuke was a walking genocide waiting to happen. You’re damn near as bad. You kept your buddies juiced up while they killed thousands. You did plenty of that killing yourself. I’m not fucking apologizing for Nuke. Nobody I ever dumped into deserved it more.”
“You asked a question, I answered it. The rest is you posturing and virtue signalling.”
“Fuck that. I don’t have virtue to signal.”
“And that is why I like you. That’s why I’m willing to hear you out.”
“So, on to business?”
“Unless you want to pollute yourself first.”
“I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Your reliance on the chemicals is a weakness. It’ll get you killed some day. Maybe by me.”
This asshole right here. I swear to fucking god. “Yeah, yeah, people keep trying, people keep failing. I got junkie power. Can’t knock me over. Let’s fucking do this. You know that Eternus wants me to try and sort out your shit. Stabilize you, give you the chance to not be a fucking homicidal psycho. Your sister begged me to at least try.
I can fucking do it. I hate it, and every bit of it will suck for both of us, but I can fix what your power broke, and you won’t lose any of the power. I’ve done it a few times.”
“Then why didn’t you do it for Nuke?”
“Fuck! Fuckity fuck fuck! Lady, until our first discussion, I had no fucking clue part of his shit was power related too. I fucking told you that. I still would have done it, I just might have regretted it. But I didn’t know, and from what I felt when I was offloading, I’m not sure I could fix him. His shit was worse than yours. You? I can feel the core of it from here. It’s a tangled up, horrible fucking knot, but I can see how to untie it. His? It wasn’t a knot, it was him. I can’t fix what isn’t broken, and he wasn’t broken, he was just that fucking nasty.”
“You didn’t know him before.”
“Neither did you! You said you didn’t meet him until you were both in the Program. That shit fucked a lot of kids up, but I can promise you that Nuke went into it already fucked up. It just made him worse. No, I know the difference between a psychological injury and someone that was born fucked. I can feel it like a throbbing tooth. A regular trauma? Those burn, they itch, but they don’t hurt just to feel. The people born fucked in the head pulse with it, it radiates off them if I don’t shield like crazy.”
“Bull. Shit. When I met Nuke, he was the one good kid in the bunch. Devastation was the one that was already hungry to hurt things.”
“My power can feel shit. Part of how it works is reading what is and isn’t ‘natural’ to the patient. Anything that isn’t part of them, anything that’s malfunctioning feels one way. Things that are natural, but not working the way it’s supposed to for others, those feel another way. It’s the difference between someone with a brain injury and someone with Down’s. One’s caused by external factors, the other internal, and my power can fix the external ones, but not the internal. Nuke? His shit was internal. Yours is caused by the power. I dunno about Devastation, never met the guy.”
“I think you’re full of it. You’re playing mental gymnastics to try and escape responsibility for not doing the hard stuff.”
“God, fuck you, generator. You think I haven’t tried… No, no, I don’t owe you shit. You’re the one with a body count in four digits, not me.”
“Don’t try pulling that card, doctor, you have a body count too, and you’re a ‘hero’. The only difference between you and me is that I don’t lie to myself. You, Eternus, that skidmark Streak, Hellion, you’ve all killed. Word is you’ve almost hit triple digits yourself. Oh, I know, they’re all criminal low lifes. Gangsters and thugs. You’re a one man epidemic, laying waste to anyone that offends you. You’re not better than me, you’re not better than Devastation, and you’re sure not better than Nuke.
Admit it. You like doing it. You like the feeling of cramming disease and misery into your victims, just the same as I like crushing the life out of the useless sacks of meat that get in my way.”
I should have taken the fucking valium. I’m going to. Fuck having this conversation straight.
“Look at you, running away into your cloudy little drug haze. You? Help me? You can’t even help yourself. You’re a coward and a killer. At least I don’t lie about it to myself.”
“Yeah, yeah, big bad Generator, proud of herself. I didn’t ask for this shit any more than you did, but at least you don’t get cancer and have to carry it around. You carry a dozen tumors around and see how you feel about drugs then.”
“Then go get some. Bring them back. Give them to me. You can take them back out any time, right? I’ll make you a bet. We’ll let them sit there with no drugs until I give up, and anyone would eventually. You take them back and see if you can go as long. You win? I let you fuck with my head. I win? Well, I win, there’s nothing I want from you, but you’ll shut your mouth and leave me alone about it. I’ll do my part with the big bad horde of Kittens either way, I gave my word on that already.”
Can’t lie, the kitten thing pulled a laugh out of me; I’d had the same thought more than once. And I put the valium back in the bottle.
“So? What happened?”
“What do you think? I took her bet.”
“Kerry, did you not maybe think to consult someone first? Like, maybe the guy that’s going to have to eat a bullet if this fucks up?”
“Ahhhh. No. No, I didn’t. It was kind of an immediate thing. Couldn’t go running off to ask permission.”
“Fuck me. Kerry, how long will she last if she doesn’t give up? How bad is what you gave her?”
“End stage stuff. Had Lightspeed run me down to Charlotte, the pediatric oncology unit there had asked for healers a couple of weeks ago. You know how it is, there’s never enough healers that can do anything about cancer at all. And I’m not in that loop. I haven’t been into all this organized shit, ever. But I cleared the ward.
She’s dead in maybe a week. She’ll be unable to function in maybe four days. Took a nasty glioblastoma from a toddler. A toddler for fuck’s sake.”
“You’re an idiot. You need to fucking fix this. And I mean now, Kerry.”
“Don, suck my cock. You aren’t my boss. You’re barely my friend, and half of that is your own fucking memories. But in the entire time you’ve known me, this loop or any others, have you ever managed to give me a fucking order and not get kicked in the nuts?”
“You’re fucking with the entire human race, you asshole!”
“No, I’m fucking with one sociopath. I’m trying to change that fact about her. I’m the only person I know of that can do it. Oh, there’s people that can fuck with minds, change shit, but they’d fuck up her power because they’d be laying in blocks and changing memories. I can fix most of it, and she’ll still be able to do her thing. So maybe give me some fucking trust here.”
“And what if she dies? What if something goes wrong?”
“Well, then when you loop back and kick me in the nuts, I’ll deserve it.”
“Okay Generator, you ready?”
“Es. Getid out. Can’t fink.”
I can feel the brain tumor, like an eldritch evil, tentacles spread even worse than they were in the kid I took it from. The leukemia ain’t fun, nor the others, but glioblastoma is a nightmare. It’s why she can’t think straight, or talk right. Fuck my life. She made it five days. She’s on death’s door, and still glaring at me.
Okay Kerry, suck it up.
Damn it! That fucking sucks. Skull feels like it’s going to explode. Vision blurry. I gotta make it six fucking days. Six fucking days. The fuck? Did I just shit myself? Why am I on the floor? I fucking hate cancers. Always some fresh fucking hell, and I can’t just offload this into a rat. Six fucking days. At least she’s calling for help.
“So, Doctor, you think you’ll win this bet? I don’t. But, unlike you, I get to go have a nice massage, drink some hot cocoa, and listen to some music. You get to suffer, and then lose. You’ll be popping morphine in an hour. Weakling.”
Was the kick really necessary? Fuck. Good. John’s here, “cnt mve rit jon. Shit slf.”
“I can tell. We’ll get you cleaned up.”
Six fucking days. At least I’ll be able to hold my bowels by morning. I hope; I’ve never taken anything this bad.