She paled and backed away, stammering, “That’s-that’s all right. It’s your project.” She glanced around to make sure my guard was aware of my threat posture. His stun gun was aimed in my direction. I was glad this was only a fraction of my berserker. If I let the whole out, I would be stunned and twitching on the floor by now.
One more growl with less grit in it, and I settled back in my chair, loaded my skinny brush with red paint. Back to what I increasingly realize is more of a mental ramble than therapy, but oh well, it’s for an audience of one.
Rusty has probably discovered my stash of cocoa-coffee candy by now. I wonder if he’s sleeping in my all-comforts bed, whether he knows where the massage button is. Maybe he just rings the bell to call Layla up for a skin-to-skin session. She probably likes him better than she ever did me; it’s hard to tell whether the women appreciate me for myself or for my power. Most of the time I don’t care, but something about Rehab breaks through my indifference and makes me wonder. I’m going to need another form of Rehab when I escape this one. I want to go to a planet where it’s legal to hunt humans, and have some of them dress up as the people I most resent so I can shoot them with zero consequences.
Today is not the day I’ll put my escape plan into action. Alan the Supreme Leader is the only other patient (or client, as they call us) in the room with me; they only let two of us into art therapy at once, since this is a restraint-free activity, and few creatures are more dangerous than frustrated supervillains. I’ve created a small coalition of the unwilling in Rehab, but Alan isn’t a member. I only recruited people who know the secret hand language of the Tillia Undersea People (now extinct), which narrowed my pool of potential partners to one woman and an animal. I need to act when Bituba, Scourge of the Unworthy, is in art therapy with me. Staff cycles these things randomly, though, and she and I haven’t been paired in more than a week.
What meaningful work can I do in today’s session, below the radar of Commander Susie?
This morning I asked Rusty, right before Group and his betrayal about Ellen, how anybody got out of Rehab. “The staff get together and discuss each case,” he said. “If they’ve seen real progress, they can decide to release you. What’s the matter with you, Spiff? Why is it taking you so long to return to your real self? Aren’t you getting the help you need? What can I do to help?”
“Maybe I just need more downtime,” I told him.
What if he goes even farther back in our history? What if he talks about what happened in the fridge when his older brother discovered how we used it? The computer in reinfliction must know about that incident, though it hasn’t used it in the matrix of memories it assaults me with each week. It’s a key to both Rusty’s and my subsequent characters, how we dealt with that two days of terror and entrapment, the heat and fear when Big Bro plugged our airholes. I was the one who scraped a finger raw getting two of the airholes open again, and Rusty was the one who collapsed into whimpers about twelve hours into our ordeal when the perpetual light failed. I acted, and he panicked.
That’s the way I remember it, anyway.
I’ve drawn enough flames on this picture for now. A thought struck me I don’t want to think about. I’m going to ask the guard to burn the picture, and tell Officer Susie I’m ready to quit.
Superirritant Susie is suspicious about Bituba’s last gesture to me. As well she should be.
Today I’m painting a cityscape under a pall of reddish smog. My skills aren’t up to this project, but Susie tells us skill level is irrelevant; all that matters is flow. She’s angry at me again because I took one of the brushes and cut most of the hair off it so I can paint with narrower lines. What’s therapeutic about sloppiness?
It’s not as easy to work code into blocky city buildings. Flames gave me flow, if that’s what it was. I feel more driven to be precise in this format.
Precisely, Bituba has just signaled that she’s ready when I am.
I’m not ready yet.
Yesterday the prognosticator at the blood chapel gave me a new god, Arisia the Mediator. What kind of a terrible name is that for a god? Would anyone feel threatened when you invoke a god like that? No one I’d care to intimidate.
The prognosticator asked me if I wanted to dedicate myself to this new god and said it would help me in the future if I did so. I don’t say yes to everything here in Rehab; I think ready acquiescence would indicate I can never rise to my full level of evil again. I wanted to refuse this ridiculous charge, but with my plans so close to fruition, I didn’t want to give anybody an excuse to overmonitor my actions, so I said, “What the hell,” and let them open a vein to spill my blood into a dish at Arisia’s statue’s feet. She is one of those gods with lots of arms and only two legs. Could be fun in the sack.
I read from the script the prognosticator handed me. “I, Darkblood, hereby dedicate myself to the worship of Arisia and invite the god to feast on my essence, binding her to my will in accordance with our covenant. Arisia, be thou my shield and sword, my victory song, my blood transfusion in times of want. In return I give you my own blood promise; I will sacrifice in your name.”
I give lip service to a lot of gods, but since Krrgoth burned me so badly, I don’t give a lot of credence to any of them. I didn’t know what Arisia was promising me, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting through another useless time-wasting activity in Rehab.
I was surprised by a strange feeling after I finished my oath to the goddess, a kind of shudder all through me as though I had planted myself and was growing roots.
Last night I had a series of dreams. I dreamed each kingdom and planet Rusty and I had conquered, watching us from some distant point as we arrived, insinuated, manipulated, blackmailed, bought our way into power and moved up, up, and on, rising on stairs built of those we had destroyed and betrayed. In my dreams I smiled at the evidence of our finesse, how neatly we out-thought our opponents, how deliciously we set plans into motion, watching as each consequence followed each action.
I remembered the Heroes, too, the many who had failed against us (and the punishments we meted out to them) and the few who had succeeded.
From a distance I studied Ruritraya, my retirement country. I saw that I had not trodden down the populace enough. Systems Rusty and I had developed and refined across the years, plans I could script in my sleep-I hadn’t initiated half of them. We had an ideal structure of power, and the one I built on Ruritraya was missing several pillars and could unbalance at any moment. The only wonder was that no Heroes had yet arisen to challenge us.
Rusty was right. My heart wasn’t in the job. I had let him down.
“This is what you have bought with your blood,” whispered the goddess’s voice through the edge of my dream. “Now you must decide which way to go.”
Arisia has to be the least fun goddess I’ve ever dedicated myself to. Another flaw in this stupid Rehab system. Why don’t they choose from the dark pantheon? What’s with these gray, nuanced gods?
I have my list of people who must die so I can continue to enjoy my evil, debauched, and luxurious lifestyle. I’ve devised an appropriate death for each of them. I have my plans and backup plans for escape. I know exactly who to promote to support me when I get back to my palace in Ruritraya, and who to incarcerate, and which dogs to kick. I have a map of my immediate future. Why is the goddess messing with my head?
“You’re focusing too much on the details,” Bossy Susie just said. “What about the big picture? There’s no balance.”