Rem

It was cloudy in the bar. It had recently acquired new management and they were apparently going for an angsty, gothic vibe. Patrons waded through a foot and a half of artificial fog in the low light. You’d think we were all vampires upon entry, but in truth, there might have been one or two, the first being the owner. Most of us were pretty dark and broody anyway though, so it was fitting. Being an unregistered Mags was a lonely life and the only safe place was the bar, so, naturally, we were all drunks.

“Rem.”

I looked up from my glass. “Hmm?” Ben was a large and particularly hairy Scotsman. People sometimes called him Big Ben. He used to respond with a grumbled “I’m not English, you yankee c*nt,” but he gave it up eventually.

“We might have a problem. There’s some men out back that I don’t like the looks of. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, but I’ve noticed a lot of movement around here. Extra patrols.”

Sighing heavily, I shot the rest of my whiskey. “Cover my tab plus another one of those.”

The second tumbler was in front of me almost instantly, like he was ready for my conditions. “Thank you,” he said. He looked like a beast, but he cared for his patrons. We were family.

When the second glass was empty, shortly after receiving it, I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on my clasped hands. When I first entered the community, people tried calling me Prayer, because of this position I took when I worked, but I didn’t pray. It felt more like my soul was being torn apart, but that didn’t translate well into a Mags name that wasn’t ridiculous, so I circulated “Rem”.

I let the brick wall of Oz down from around my mind and stretched. It used to take hours to split and I couldn’t control how much. It was painful and nauseating. Now it only took a few minutes to gather just enough sight, sound, and thought to pull away for accomplishing my purpose.

Every time I did this, it was like a slingshot. I had to aim carefully or I’d end up bouncing around several bodies before I found who I was looking for.

I could find the men outside fairly easily. Even from within the bar, they felt suspicious. I shot.

The consciousness that grabbed me was wrong. I didn’t miss or find someone else; it was just wrong. Everything was blank. Looking through his eyes I saw white, hearing through his ears was silent. Even his thoughts were empty.

“Something’s wrong,” I whispered to Ben, before jumping to the next closest stranger. Again, it was blank. I snapped back together and looked at him. My heart was racing. Somehow I couldn’t break into their senses. I needed more power. “I’m going to sleep. You should start asking people to leave.”

Ben’s eyes widened and my mouth went dry. I could feel his rising panic and it didn’t help my own. It felt like a coil of barbed wire, expanding in my chest. “What about you?” he whispered, looking around, taking stock of how many customers there were.

“Carry me if I’m still out when you have to leave.” Ben nodded and I returned to my prayer pose. I trusted Ben with my life. I fell asleep almost instantly, taking a much larger portion of my soul from my body and launching it across the bar and out the back wall once again.

The first thing I was aware of was the holster on my hip and the badge in my coat pocket. There was fear and anticipation and the image of a strategy map. X’s and squares of different colors surrounded a building block. It was our block. I couldn’t get anything else before what could only be described as a psychic hammer blew me out of the water. I woke up in my own body with a start and jumped from the chair, knocking it over with a loud clatter. My eyes squeezed shut and a flash of white-hot pain engulfed my brain. I was frozen in space as I contracted inside my own flesh. I could barely breathe and it took everything I had not to scream. I had never felt anything like this. I was aware of Ben scooping me up into his bearlike arms, but I couldn’t feel anything but pain. Every sound screeched in my ears like cutting metal.

Just over the din of screeching and shrieking, I could hear Ben. “Split to me, Rem!” I didn’t have much of a choice as the pain forced me from my own head, leaving little more than my basic life-sustaining functions behind with my agonized body.

To prevent interference with Ben’s thoughts and actions, I allowed myself to somewhat assimilate with his soul. The bar had emptied quickly and we hopped down the wide, square shaft that served as an escape route in the event of an emergency like this one.

The tunnel went on for about a mile and every inch smelled toxic. It wasn’t a sewer, but it was sewer-adjacent and stink seemed to soak through the walls like a sponge. I wanted to wretch, but Ben had a much better gag reflex than I did.

We threw my lifeless shell of a body over his shoulder when we approached the ladder at the end of the tunnel. The metal rungs were rusted and perilous, but soon we were breathing fresh air and feeling the warmth of the July afternoon.

The relief was short-lived.

I felt their presence before he did, and I couldn’t gain control fast enough to warn him. A single shot was fired and threw us forward. I fell from his arms to the hot asphalt and a shrill, tormented scream tore through my throat. I tried to break free of the pain, but I was trapped. I was rushed by at least 3 people. I couldn’t tell their size or gender or really anything about their appearance, but a pale hand stabbing me with a syringe and I no longer felt the pain.