“Nick, are you still there?”
My heartbeat thudded in my ears.
“You haven’t said anything in a while.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, sorry, I’m here. Just zoning out.”
A tourniquet had been tied tightly around my upper arm, making my fingers tingly from the restricted circulation. It also made the aching in my aged arm significantly worse. Cut it off like a bad hangnail.
I forced myself to look back at the laptop where I could see Bailey on the screen, with Vanessa sitting on a couch in the background. The connection was spotty due to us being in the woods just outside of the H.E.S.P. compound.
I didn’t want to cause a scene.
Thwack.
I winced as I heard Tom try the axe on some wood nearby.
“It seems sharp enough,” he said
“How the fuck would you know that?” Kay asked from where she was sitting cross-legged, idly gathering leaves into a pile. “Even with your Shape, how would your dumbass have any reference point to know it’s sharp enough for this?”
“Good to hear they’re still getting along without me,” Bailey said with a grin.
“Yeah,” I said, massaging my tense neck. “Please, continue with what you were saying. I need the distraction.”
“The public is past the point of skepticism now, there’s just too much content to consider this a hoax. There are interviews airing every day from the survivors of Sillwood. People are getting a lot of perspectives but of course the most prominent overarching theme is fear. Monsters emerging from nowhere, anyone could be hiding something under their clothes. Domestic violence has shot through the roof. People are using the paranoia as a justification for their awful acts.”
“I heard they’re trying to enforce body inspection checkpoints in the U.K.,” Vanessa chimed in from the background.
“People are concerned about safety, fair enough,” Bailey continued. “But this wild grasping for control is accomplishing the opposite. We’re already seeing some authoritarian political leaders start to make moves, capitalizing on the unrest. But, and this is a big but-”
Vanessa snickered.
“Shapers are advocating for themselves. There’s a man in Hungary who has become a local hero for healing people in hospitals. There are streamers who are interviewing Shapers and letting them tell their stories. It only really takes having a one-on-one conversation with someone to realize that they aren’t these scary unknowable monsters. And to be clear, Sillwood was an anomaly. Most places don’t have that many Shapers in their population. Dice was heavily skewing the numbers. As long as public perception remains conflicted, I think that’s a good thing. It means the narrative isn’t locked into ‘Shaping equals bad’.”
“Let me do it,” I heard Nell say behind me.
“Uh, you sure?” Tom asked. “I know you’ve been training, but I think I’m still a bit stronger.”
“I’m sure.”
I heard Nell approach me and squeezed my eyes shut. It didn’t take a psychic connection to feel the apprehension in the air.
“Is it happening?” Vanessa asked, jumping off the bed and grabbing the camera as if she would be able to move the laptop on our end to point in the right direction. Bailey fought her off.
“Keep talking, please,” I said through clenched teeth. I could feel Nell Shaping my arm, probably weakening it before the cut.
Bailey’s voice was slightly strained from holding Vanessa off, “The families of those kids saved by the H.E.S.P. Shaper squad are incredibly grateful. It was a good first move by the Director to make that your first mission. I just hope it doesn’t turn into a thing where Shapers solving Shaper-caused problems leads to severe ‘othering’.”
“That’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?” Kay asked. “History tells us what happens when white people in power decide they know better than us about how to run our communities. People within communities have the experience to handle conflicts properly.”
All of this didn’t help. I could still tell exactly when Nell swung, the spike in her emotions was like a lightning bolt lighting up a cloudy sky. Every muscle in my body seized up.
Thunk.
The axe sank into the stump.
I didn’t wait to let any sensations sink in, immediately I began to pull at the forest around me, assimilating as hard as I could. Nell channeled the incoming energy, directing it efficiently towards building out the limb. Nerve endings felt like live wires, sparking with fresh signals as they pushed out into the tips of my fingers.
The ache was gone and I finally let myself look. Reddened skin filled out the areas around my fingernails. I turned my palm up and watched as familiar blemishes appeared, all the moles in their proper places, like they’d never left.
“Significantly less messy than I expected,” Tom said.
“Shouldn’t your Shape have told you that?” Kay asked sarcastically.
The stump and the axe were spotless, there wasn’t a drop of blood. I turned to Nell who pulsed amusement. “Sorry, not sorry,” she said, sticking out her tongue.
“The main thing we were trying to accomplish was mental, so you couldn’t know. I could’ve detached the arm at any point, no chopping required, but I had to trick your brain into letting that tissue go and starting from scratch. Otherwise it would have just healed back the same.”
Tom picked up a shovel and lifted the severed arm. I couldn’t even look at it without feeling sick to my stomach. It didn’t look like it belonged to me.
“Do you think we made a mistake by locking up Jenson?” Tom asked while tossing the arm into a pre-dug hole. “I mean, the guy was basically knocking on the door of immortality, no?”
“There were some serious caveats,” Nell replied. “It wasn’t true immortality.”
“Sure, but maybe he could have gotten there eventually.”
“It’s interesting though,” Kay said, leaning down to inspect my new arm, “that Nick’s arm grows back to the correct age.”
She looked up at me and I became acutely aware of how close she was. I looked away, feeling shaky. Probably just the adrenaline dying down.
Suddenly her fingers grasped my chin and forced me to look at her again. My heart was pounding again. Ah fuck.
“You changed your face,” she said.
I removed her hand and felt how hot my cheeks were. What do I say? How do I even talk about this?
“Huh?” Tom walked over and squinted at me. “What do you mean?”
I lowered my head. “I… I…”
“We’re just experimenting,” Nell said, coming to my rescue. “Making little nudges, moving some bone around. See if it feels any better.”
Tom scratched his head. “Wait, so like, was something hurting your face?”
“Tom, shut up,” Kay said, breaking off her stare. “My bad, Nick. That just slipped out. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”
I laughed weakly. “I’m the one who made it weird. Sorry.”
“Nah,” Bailey said from the laptop. “Don’t apologize. You’re good. Tom is being dumb.”
Tom swiveled back and forth, gesturing wildly and making caveman noises expressing his outrage at being targeted without using words.
“You don’t think it’s strange?” I asked, staring at the ground.
“I’d do it if I could,” Bailey said casually. “Plus, what metric can we even use for ‘weird’ at this point? Sounds pretty tame. It’s your body, do whatever you want with it.”
“I just thought that maybe… it would feel like I’m being inauthentic.”
Vanessa snorted and propped her pink leg up on Bailey’s shoulder. “Inauthentic to what? The flesh bags we’re all born into? It’s not like we got a character customizer screen at birth. We have to figure it out on the fly.”
“Plus, it’s not the first time you’ve done it,” Kay said.
I blinked in confusion.
Kay waggled her fingers at me. “The nails? From Zola, right? And your hair started to look different after meeting Daria too. More… flowy”
I looked at Nell.
She raised her hands. “Wasn’t me. You did that on your own. Kay, you are people-watching way too damn closely.”
Kay touched her glasses, looking apologetic. “Sorry. Bad habit. I should just keep it to myself. But what Nick is doing is normal, isn’t it? Everyone takes little pieces of other people to keep for themselves. Do whatever makes you happy.”
Why was this so hard? I didn’t want to feel the burn of shame, like I was doing something wrong for focusing on myself. And I agreed with Kay, I was treasuring little pieces of people inside of myself. Even the memories of the deceased, those who were once strangers that lingered in my mind, they had a place in my heart.
“Nick,” Kay started, picking her words carefully. “Did you watch many movies growing up? Or did you read many stories?”
I flexed the fingers of my new hand. “Sure? Although I’m not sure what you’re getting at. When I was a kid my kookum would read stories to me.”
“I’m just wondering if you’ve encountered certain perspectives. Finding someone you resonate with could help a lot with figuring out where you stand on identity stuff.”
Was that the reason I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark?
“Ohhhh,” Tom said, snapping his fingers as he finally clued in to what was being discussed.
“Shut up, Tom,” Bailey and Kay said in unison.
Nell broke down into laughter as Tom threw himself headfirst into the pile of fallen leaves.
“Watch party,” Bailey said with a smile. “Let’s all collect some of our favourite movies with some queer representation. Then we can meet up some time and have a fun night. Pillows, popcorn, the works.”
Nell wiped a mirthful tear from her eye and grinned. “That sounds fun!”
The enthusiasm of everyone made it easy to cheer up.
“Yeah!” I said. “Let’s do it, maybe once this mission is over.”
My chest felt a lot lighter, hearing all of my friends talking about this normally. Maybe, eventually, I would find answers. But even if I didn’t, this felt a lot better than where I had started. It helped to know that no matter what I faced, I wouldn’t be doing it alone.