“Good point.” And so I pushed the radiation up from its core, the atoms bursting from some deep, hidden place. I looked at a zombie in the rear of the booth, adjusted the speed and strength, and then let go. Lift you right arm, I said inside my head, transmitting the thought. Sadly, he didn’t budge. Groaned, yes, budged, no. I tried again. This time, I got some singed flesh and a nasty whiff of death for my efforts.
“Thank goodness this is only practice,” said Lola.
“Well, you’re welcome to try then,” I told her.
She sighed. Or at least grunted, but still. “I have been. I’ve tried both your tricks, but I can neither slash through anything nor see through anything. I tried and tried, and nothing. It must be something about you, perhaps the fact that you’ve been cognizant for so long. Maybe you’re in better control over your body as a result. Maybe in a few hundred years I’ll be able to master it. But, for now, everything is resting on you.”
My eyes went wide. “Gee, no pressure, Lola.”
She pointed to the zombie. “Just keep trying.”
Which is what I did, turning some inner unseen knob this way and that. Perhaps, just as Lola had said, it really did take a few hundred years to be able to do what I was doing. And also perhaps that’s why I didn’t know about my powers until now, or maybe, like I thought, I just didn’t need to see through walls or make zombies lift their appendages before. In any case, eventually the zombie did indeed lift its right arm, apparently hearing my transmission.
“Amazing,” said Lola. “But can you hear him in reverse?”
I shook my head. “The him in question doesn’t think, doesn’t transmit. So I’ll, uh, have to practice on you next.”
Again her eyes went squinty. I mean, here I was, a zombie she just barely knew, asking permission to access her head and, perhaps, screw up and radiate her into oblivion. “You sure about this?” she asked, hesitantly.
“Nope.”
She cringed. “Can you get sure, please?”
Again I nodded. “Okay. I’ll try. The setting seems to be locked in already. All I have to do is push.” I forced a smile. “Ready?” Now it was her turn to nod. “Three, two, one . . .” I pushed and willed my thought her way. “Contact?” I asked, inside my head.
Her face lit up like the Fourth of July. “I can hear you,” came the reply. “Can you hear me?” I gave her the thumbs up. “Good, now get the fuck out of my head and pardon my own damned French.”
I laughed and flicked the power off, feeling the burbling deep within simmer before dropping down to normal—which was a strange use of the word, I admit. “Weird,” I said.
“Tell me about it.” She then pointed ceilingward. “Now to tell the husbands.”
My smile, like my inner juice before it, flickered. “But what if my transmission is wider than we think? What if I aim it that way and Blondella picks up on it? Then not only are we back to square one, but also, and more than likely, gonna be buried beneath it. And we might’ve cheated death once as of late, but twice is highly unlikely. Fool death once, shame on you; fool it twice and it kicks your mother effin’ ass.
“Good point,” she allowed. “But I’m scheduled to meet with her shortly, to start our sleeping lessons. I’ll make sure to keep some bit of distance between us and you and us and the husbands. Plus, if she hears anything, I’m sure I’ll be able to tell. Mainly because she’ll probably kill me in a, to use the word loosely, heartbeat.”
I grinned, despite the implication. “Lola, you always this cool under pressure?”
And then she grinned. “A cucumber ain’t got nothing on me, pal. Besides, what choice do I have?”
“Exactly,” I allowed, none too happily. “So I guess we wait until the mistress calls upon you then.”
She pointed through the glass and out to the dance floor. Blondella’s platinum beehive was already weaving our way. “Show time,” she murmured, just beneath her breath.
Suddenly, I prayed that those two Tony Awards were for acting and not set design.
Gone, but Not Forgotten
Lola exited, stage right, and I was left to do my one-man show. I waited until I could no longer spot them, knowing that Lola had made sure to keep as much distance as possible between us and the queen bitch. I then hobbled out of the DJ booth and made my way to just below the catwalk and as close to the husbands as I could get. Meaning, I wasn’t taking any chances when it came to my newfound and sketchy-at-best powers.
As soon as I was well-situated, I powered up my X-ray vision and sent it beaming. Again I found Dara, same spot, staring at the door and looking rather forlorn. I then modulated the radiation, as I’d done in the DJ booth, one wave instantly replacing another. “Earth to Dara,” I transmitted. “Come in. Over.”
I could no longer see her, now that I’d switched one power off to turn the other on, but I could, in fact, hear her. “Oh shit. Now I’m hearing things. They say that sanity is the first thing to go.”