A Disease of Magic

Leo was waiting for me when I got home.

He sat at the dining table off to the left, leaning back in his chair, arms and ankles crossed. He stood as I closed the door behind me.

“Callie.” His voice was deeper, his tone clipped.

“Hi,” I answered. I offered him a little wave as I started towards my room. “I’m going to relax for a bit. We’ll catch up later.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

I stopped in my tracks and stood there a moment before turning back around. “Tell you what, exactly?”

“Any of it.”

I scoffed and crossed my arms. “Any of what?”

“We can start with your date.”

“What about it?”

“Don’t you think it’s a wise idea to let someone know where you are and who you’re with?”

“In case you missed it, I met Alex at the group. Meaning he also has LaShoul’s, and knows what to look out for,” I pointed out.

“That’s not what I meant,” he answered.

“Then tell me what you do mean, Leo, because I’m starting to get irritated.”

He sighed, holding out a hand. “I’m sorry. Can we sit and talk? This isn’t coming out the way I wanted it to.”

I considered for half a second before I stalked over and plopped my ass down in a chair across from him. This better be quick. I wanted to get a bath in, or at the minimum a shower, before I passed out on my bed. I was always tired for a week or so after an episode, but this last one had been a doozy and was still kicking my ass.

Leo braced his arms on the table, hands clasped. “What I meant to say was that you and I have pretty small social circles. I’m really glad you’re meeting new people. But going on a date with someone you’ve only just met and not telling at least one other person where you are or who you’re with could be dangerous.”

“He’s not dangerous, Leo. He’s been nothing but nice to me, and has helped me figure out how this—” I held my left arm up “—thing is supposed to work so I can actually use it.”

“But I already showed you.”

I shook my head. “You showed me how to look at the stats, but not how to stop the alerts or run reports or anything like that. You haven’t had time lately. Not that I blame you,” I added in a rush. “You’re doing a lot of work, trying to help a lot of people.”

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I forgot I mentioned I’d do that with you. But regardless, I don’t exactly like this Alex person.”

I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Why am I not surprised? He works for your competitor.”

“That’s not—”

“He’s trying to manage life as best as he can, just like you and I, but he’s had to work harder to get where he is, and it’s not his fault he was able to get a job where he did.”

“Don’t be insinuating that I—”

“If guys could just stop trying to one-up each other and try working together, then maybe things would actua—”

“He left you last week!” Leo shouted, interrupting my rant. “He should have at least walked you to the subway that late at night to make sure you got there okay!”

Every muscle in my body was frozen.

“What did you just say?” I whispered. My vision started blurring around the edges as I focused solely on his face.

His eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he doubled down. “He should have been a gentleman and walked you at least partway home after your date. Especially knowing you also have LaShoul’s.”

“How did you know?” I wondered. “Because I sure as shit didn’t fucking tell you anything about that.”

Leo had the audacity to finally look embarrassed. “It’s nothing. I wanted to make sure you were okay after you woke up, see if I could start working on your triggers with the data I could pull from your screen. The more information I had, the easier it would be.”

“So you invaded my privacy?” I ground out.

“Technically, as part of the clinical trial with the screens, I can access whatever information I decide is necessary.”

I was getting too worked up. Sweat beaded along my forehead, a drop sliding down the side of my face. My hands were vibrating against the glass top of the table, loaded with the desire to just punch something. My breathing came in heavy pants, and I hung my head so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

“Did that woman even need to interview me, or did you ask her to?” I accused, looking back up at him to gauge his response. Hurt flashed across his face, but I couldn’t find it in myself to feel bad. “But that really doesn’t matter, does it? Because you could just read the answers afterwards, instead of asking me like the friend I thought I was. Is all I am to you another set of data? Is that what our friendship is actually built on?”

“Callie, no.” He stepped around the table, reaching a hand out to touch my arm.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I slapped my hands down on the table, hard.

Glass shattered.

In my shock, I could only barely feel the sharp sting of the glass shards on my legs. My hands smarted, mostly in the heels, where I hit the table with the most force.

“Oh, shit,” Leo cursed. “Callie, don’t move. Let me just… Are you okay?”

I turned slowly, stiffly, and met his eyes that were brimming with concern. “I’m fine, bestie.”

I carefully extracted myself from the mess, ditching my shoes once I was in the clear, and retreated to my room. A pair of tweezers and a warm bath would do the trick to get any glass out. I was done with hospitals and any other medical buildings for the foreseeable future.

I was curled up in bed, legs peppered with bandages after I’d fished out all thirteen shards of glass, with Lucie’s butt too close to my face as I stroked her fur. Cats.

A gentle knock against my door had me pulling the covers up over my head. I ignored Leo, hoping he’d get the message and leave, but he just knocked again before letting himself in. It was his apartment, technically. He refused to let me pay for this room, or for utilities, or even groceries. Benefits to having a rich daddy; they just throw money at the problem and expect that to fix everything. But that meant I didn’t feel like I could bar him from my room, because he paid for it. This was the first time he’d ever entered without permission, making me curious despite my lingering anger at what could warrant him to intrude on my space.

“Callie,” he called out, likely seeing the lump of my body under the covers. “I know you’re still up. Lucie’s still on your bed, and the TV is on.”

I didn’t reply. I had nothing I wanted to say to him. If he wanted to talk to me, he could do it like this. Was it a bit childish? I didn’t really care.

He let out a big sigh. “Listen, I’m really sorry. Everything came across so wrong and I’m just…I’m worried about you, Callie. Not that it’s an excuse for what I said. You’re definitely my friend, and not just someone else to use to get answers.

“But that’s not why I’m here.”

I perked up a little at his tone, a mix of excitement and something else. Fear, maybe? Or nerves?

“My bio-screen picked up on something.”

I relented, too curious to keep up my immature pouting, and tossed the covers off my head. Scooting back, I sat up and looked at him. After a moment, I gestured to the empty space next to me impatiently.

Leo wasted no time in making himself comfortable, grabbing my single spare pillow and propping it up behind his back as he leaned against the headboard. He put his arm out between us, showing me his screen that looked nothing like mine.

“How did you get yours purple?” I wondered aloud. I thought they were just blue and white.

“I’ll show you later. Look at these.” He pointed to some specific stats on his advanced tab. There were a series of them listed in red at the bottom.

The dots connected themselves. “Are those your mods?”

“Yes. I have air quality, sound, UV, a whole bunch of things.”

“And your arm hasn’t exploded yet,” I helpfully added.

“Not yet, at least,” he agreed. “This one here. What do you see?”

I leaned in close as he tapped on one, showing a line graph of that stat. The top of it read “Gamma” and it had a sudden, short-lived spike.

“Well, I see that it suddenly spiked. When was this?” I looked even harder, trying to answer my own question.

“That happened when the table broke.”

His eyes were already looking at me when mine shot up. I stayed quiet, knowing he would elaborate.

“There was a sudden spike in gamma radiation. Over in a matter of a second or two, but definitely there.”

I contemplated this. Perhaps it was some sort of fluke that had broken the table at the exact moment I had slapped my hands on it. Was this something going on in the environment on a regular basis? Where was it coming from? Could we protect ourselves from it? What were the long-term effects of this exposure?

“I’m wondering if it came from you,” Leo stated, matter of factly.

I gaped at him. “Me? You think I did this?”

“Not intentionally,” he hurriedly said. “But I’m wondering if it’s a side-effect of something. Obviously, without your bio-screen tracking this radiation too, it’s impossible to know. But, Callie, that table is, well, was made of bulletproof glass. It should have maybe spiderwebbed around impact, not shattered into a thousand pieces.”

“You think I somehow shattered that table.” It was a statement, not a question. Leo dipped his head.

“I’m wondering what is actually going on with you. Your LaShoul’s, specifically. This could be something that we haven’t been able to detect and treat, because honestly, who would think to check for gamma radiation?” Leo was too excited about this. Anything science related was all but a turn-on for him. He barely paused for a breath before continuing, “Obviously, having this information is helpful, but we need to figure out what to do with it. And to be able to have as much data as we can, I need to mod your screen.” He held out his hand, expectantly.

“Now?”

“It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“But you haven’t guaranteed that it won’t blow my arm off,” I protested in jest. He gave me a dry look, and I raised my hands in defense as if to say, well, can you blame me?

He wiggled the fingers of his outstretched hand. I turned to face him fully and placed my left arm in it. He tapped through the settings menu on my screen before bringing his arm next to mine. He flicked through his own menu a moment before both our screens went dark.

“There,” he said smugly. “That’ll give you the same ‘update’ I gave mine. I had to code it very specifically, so that the rest of the company won’t see it as meddling. They’re pretty protective of their stuff.”

“But since you helped make this,” I assumed, “then you know the work-arounds.”

“Exactly.”

I stared at him a moment, his eyes alight with what I could only describe as glee.

“Now what?”

He shrugged. “We let the update finish. Should take another minute, maybe. And then we get you to break something else.”

A short laugh burst out. “I’m sorry. I must have misheard you. Because I thought I just heard you say you want me to break something else, which is still implying that I broke your table. And that is bullshit.”

“I think you did.”

“How the hell would I have managed that?” I demanded.

“Fuck if I know. But we need to try.” His eyebrows wagged at me conspiratorially. “For science.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. “Fine,” I relented, letting the air out in a rush. I was such a push-over.

He clapped his hands once, startling Lucie who immediately darted underneath my bed, and jumped up. “Excellent. I’ve got it all ready.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered under my breath. I followed him into the kitchen, where he had several glasses lined up along the counter.

“You want me to break those?”

“I’d like you to try. But.” He pointed to a white bundle next to the glasses. “You need to put that on first. So you don’t get hurt again.”

Without a word, I went over and put on what looked like some type of hazmat suit. It covered me from head to toe, and Leo even forced my feet into some weird boots of his that were a tripping hazard.

“This is going to suck,” I predicted.

Over an hour later proved me right. I was tired, annoyed, and frustrated with the absence of any hint of progress and Leo’s inability to just call it a night. And I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, because this whole thing was preposterous. There was no way that I had the ability to break glass without slamming it against something. This was never going to work, and I was done. Maybe a night of rest would open Leo’s eyes to that.

“We can try again tomorrow,” I tried. I’d promise almost anything at this point to be able to go to bed right now. Leo stood on the other side of the counter where his table used to be. He’d spent the time waiting for me to perform some magic carefully picking up and disposing of the glass shards of the table. Until it was finished, Lucie would be barricaded in my room, and there was a reasonable chance I might wake up with an angry cat yowling in my face in the middle of the night. Not that she left my room at night normally, but she liked to have the option.

“Keep trying,” Leo insisted, not looking up. “If this works the way I think it will, then it could be huge.”

I went to rub at my eyes, which were becoming bleary with fatigue, but the stupid protective goggles were in my way.

“Come on, Leo. Please.” If I needed to start begging I would. “This isn’t going to work.”

“But what if it does?”

I held the glass up. “What if I’m able to shatter this glass with the thoughts in my head? You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right? I’m not some superhuman who can suddenly do magic, and this wouldn’t even be the type I’d want!”

“Keep. Trying.”

“No.” I put the glass down next to the other five perfectly intact glasses in front of me and crossed my arms. Leo paused in his work, then carefully stepped over to my side of the counter. He was effectively blocking my path now. I could go around him, but it was clear he might physically stop me.

“Callie.” With that one word, he demanded so much.

“Leo, I am exhausted. I’m still recovering, and I don’t want to play this stupid game of yours anymore! It didn’t work. We’ll try something else tomorrow.” I went to step around him, but he moved with me. “Leo, move.” When he didn’t budge, I tried again. Still, he didn’t let me.

I glared up at him and ripped the damn goggles off my head. “You’re really starting to piss me off,” I warned him. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

He crossed his arms, mirroring my stance. I saw red.

“Leo, I’m not going to break those damn glasses, so just—” I swept my arm out to the side, gesturing to the line of them.

They shattered.

Every one of them.

Curious. I kept my arm extended, waving it around. Nope. Neither my arm nor my hand were currently close enough to knock into them. I tried again, sure that I had to be wrong. But I wasn’t.

The glass hadn’t touched me, but my palm tingled slightly, that pins and needles sensation that drove me nuts when I woke up those rare mornings with a hand asleep.

I chanced a look at Leo. I didn’t know a human could smile so widely and with so many teeth. It was kind of creepy, honestly.

“Shut up,” I tried to snap. It came out weak and defeated. My limbs were suddenly heavy, eyes struggling to stay open. I wasn’t sure if it was that little display with the glasses, the adrenaline or anger leaving my system, or whatever other nonsense was apparently coursing through my body.

Finally, Leo let me walk past him. He didn’t say a word as I stripped off the stupid protective wear as I left the kitchen, ripping it when it didn’t remove easily. Back in my room, I locked the door behind me, fell face first onto my bed, and almost immediately fell asleep.