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“The ocean is just outside,” Grandfather wheedles. “You should go catch some sun. You’re pale as a ghost.”
“I recently almost became a ghost,” I reply, not looking up from the biochemistry textbook. He bought it because it’s the only thing I’ve asked for.
“You’ll get sick, cooped up inside,” he tries one last time.
I’m sick from the coma. I’m sick with grief. I’m sick of people, but nature depresses me worse than society does.
Nature is happy and vibrant, and doesn’t care that the last time I let it call me out, it killed whom I loved most.

SWITCHBLADE STHENO – A PETTY CRIMINAL
OR A VIABLE THREAT TO SOCIETY?
article by Clark Kent
If you make an omelet, you need to break a few eggs – that seems to be the philosophy of the vigilantes. The streets of our cities have become a battlefield for people gifted with superhuman abilities. The latest newcomer to the shadowy scene of alleged superheroes appears to be less than heroic, for she has broken many eggs indeed. More on pg. 5.
*
I put down the newspaper and dig into my breakfast. And because I had to, for irony’s sake, it is an omelet.

At some point it comes to this. It’s akin to an implementation of martial law. A terrorist or a freedom fighter, a good guy or a bad guy – none of it means anything.
All the context I need to make a decision is:

He’s armed and threatening to kill people.
He’s desperate.
He’s a danger to me.

I’m not a terrorist or a freedom fighter. I’m not an arm of law. What I am, however, is a rational being, and in my mind that authorises me to become judge, jury and executioner before I am the one judged and executed.

“No, you don’t understand,” the woman mumbles. “He’s a good boy. Too gentle to hurt a fly!” She sobs into a handkerchief.
Her son is thirty-seven, single and unemployed. He lives in her basement, collects action figures and trolls the internet. Two weeks ago he accidentally found out that his mother has been ill for some time and is going to die soon.
He suffered a psychotic break. We’ve found him wrist-deep into his fourth victim.
I would feel sorry for her, but watching her passively watch the police take him away… I can tell he comes by it honestly.

Genet claimed to have no family.
His funeral is overrun with his siblings, their children and grandchildren.
“He was a government specialist,” a man playing with car-keys says to his wife. “He must have been swimming in dough.”
“Maybe he left it to some of your cousins,” she suggests. “You’ll find out from the will.”
I watch the nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces… and decide that I’ll be able to put my teacher’s money to a better use than they would. Genet gave me his account information for a reason – most likely because he really enjoyed imagining their reaction.

“Bogart & Sons Security Service,” Mithra says into the phone. “No, you cannot speak with Mr Bogart.”
The rest of the conversation is predictable.
“I am the manager.”
I preemptively remove all glass from her desk.
“What can I do?” Mithra snorts. She hangs up.
“Put a switchblade into his eye before he blinks?” I suggest.
She laughs, and the tension is broken.
This happens. We are two women trying to make it in a male-dominated business sphere. The easiest way is through the huge blind spots of male conceit: that's why we named the agency the way we did.

I deposit the little girl into the arms of the distraught wife. She hugs the child to her chest, both sobbing and snuffling. I quickly switch with Mithra. Mithra is better with people.
“Thank you!” the woman cries and pulls Mithra into a sort of three-way hug. “You saved my baby! Thank you so much!”
I meet the husband’s eyes and tacitly direct him to the office. It’s satisfying to do good deeds and save kids’ lives, but we still have to eat. Besides, he’s got his daughter back. What do a few thousand Euros mean in comparison to that?

I sip the martini.
“We were kids,” I say. It’s true. It also means nothing. “Like Romeo and Juliet. Addled enough to believe that ‘love’ was some kind of valid reason to fuck up our lives. So we did. Or I did. He mostly just died.”
I swallow the olive and shrug. “We met up out of country where my folks couldn’t get at us. Went on a walk through the picturesque country-side one morning. Got less picturesque with the snake bites. Afterwards, I just remember waking up from two months of coma to be told he didn’t make it.”

“Guess what I’ve got?” I tease, walking into the office.
Mithra glances up from her comic book. “What?”
“Business cards.” I put a set in front of her and wait for the verdict. They’re not really eye-catching, but I don’t think that’s what we’re going for. They’re elegant and to the point.
Mithra doubtfully looks at me. “Business cards. Next you’ll be hiring billboards along the highways to advertise.”
We might have to. The agency is new, and it will take some time before the word of mouth spreads.
“People don’t know about us yet, but they will. And soon.”

“I think we’ve found her,” Mithra says tightly, and sends me ahead into the greenhouse.
The stink warns me in time to prevent me from losing my breakfast.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen a dead body. Killing is included in my job description. I’ve see death agony and what it does to people – convulsions, involuntarily relaxation of sphincters, arterial sprays… Occasionally, death is even uglier than life.
Like right now.
The victim was a young woman. She’s been dead for days, and left in a place resembling a tropical forest. You can imagine what the cadaver looks like.

Illusionists are the worst. An individual has no viable defence against them.
I raise my hands to my throat, but there’s nothing to grasp at. I can’t breathe. I can’t see.
It feels like wearing a strait-jacket, or like being bound by coils of rope, only they are tough as steel and heavy as lead. I might be screaming, but can’t hear myself, because he’s controlling all my sensory perception.
Suddenly it’s gone and I fall to the floor. I can barely inhale, wavering on the edge of consciousness. Through the fog of oxygen deprivation I hear a familiar voice.

It’s echoes of me from the time before Genet that resurface. Faced with people I genuinely dislike and stuck in an irresponsible mood, I become the terror I once used to be.
“Father, who art in Heaven,” the priest mutters, vainly trying to pull further away from me.
I’m not enjoying this body-guarding shtick. The confessional's cramped.
The only consolation is that my principal's freaking out completely: sweaty palms, taut nerves, shaking voice. Reducing a man of God to a man is strangely satisfying. And easy. You just have to stand… really… really… close.
No wonder I got myself disinherited.

Dan makes his last stand inside a school.
He’s armed with an Uzi and wears a vest of dynamite.
We thought he was one of the little criminals, the bullied kids that have grown into bullied adults and found the means to take their pain out on the world, starting with making up unfortunate villainous pseudonyms.
I step out of a shadow and put a switchblade into Mr de Lyon’s eye before he can fire himself up.
There’s screaming. I guess I’ve just traumatised thirty eight-year-olds… but in the end, mission's accomplished.
"Kids," I say, "that's why bullying is wrong."

Walking into the charity event is like stepping into my past.
My face is still well-known; people recognize me despite sunglasses. They mutter, unflattering and downright offensive, releasing years’ worth of accumulated spite.
I know what they’re saying.
Disgraced. Disinherited. Shame on the family’s name.
And there’s my Father, sitting on his metaphorical Tycoon Throne, looking down on his subjects. My Mother speaks to the caterers, a demure and elegant Queen of Engineering.
Look, my little sister. The perfect, beautiful princess I never could have been.
I touch the skull motif on my glove and get ready to raise Hell.

I find Quetzal squatting in front of the open fridge and blankly staring inside. “Is Mithra pregnant?”
“Not as far as I know,” I say.
“Are you?”
“Nope.”
Distressed, he turns his head to me. “Is either of you on some kind of a weird diet?”
“Nope.” I lean down and look inside over his shoulder.
There are yesterday’s lasagna leftovers, some olives, more olives, a jar of pickles, three eggs, two beer cans, bottles of ketchup, milk, vermouth and vodka (because Mithra and I can’t ever agree on one type of alcohol).
I shrug. “Guess it’s another take-out day.”

Dr Cato is stunned speechless when I nail her to the wall. The perpetual simpering smile freezes on her face. By the time she realises that her team of costumed Sailor Moon rejects aren’t coming for her, soft canine whinges start issuing from her throat.
It’s unbelievably cathartic.
I pull one of my shuriken out of her sleeve and wave it under her upturned nose. “You didn’t expect these, did you?”
Perks of shuriken is that you can hide them well. Even in business casual.
“That’s a dirty trick,” she grumbles sourly.
I choose to take that as a compliment.

“You killed my brother!” Apollyon shrieks, raising his mace.
I should be frightened, panicking, running away.
I can’t move.
“I did not.” Of that much, at least, I’ve always been sure. It was an accident, followed by gross incompetence of medical personnel. I was in coma for two months myself. None of it was my fault, beyond the fact of my existence.
“You did!” he snarls at me, blind and deaf to all rational arguments.
I meet his eyes – the same colour as Yorick’s were – and for a moment we understand each other perfectly. Two people still mourning someone irreplaceable.

There’s a young man in an indecently tight yet fluffy overall.
Not a lot gives me creeps, but this does.
“…and who are you?” Mithra asks, undecided between outrage and mirth.
“I am the Coypuman!” the boy cries out and waves his cattle rod around. “Down with the government! Anarchy is the only way to live! Be yourself!”
I have a momentary vision of smacking him on the nose with rolled up newspaper and telling him to carefully rethink his life’s choices. Not that I think it – or anything – could help him.
“Dude, does your mother know that you’re gone?”

“Art? No,” Genet denies. “It’s only similar in that to become truly great at it, you need to have natural talent. It’s in fact lots of hard work and at least as much luck.”
“And you call it science?” I’ve always thought that psychology is a game. “Science shouldn’t depend on luck.”
“All science is but luck and guesswork. Or God, should you prefer that explanation.”
“I definitely don’t.”
Genet laces his fingers. “Stop looking for purpose in a psychopath’s actions. The actions are their own purpose. He is creating art – and art needs but be to fulfill its purpose.”

Mithra comes in while I‘m sitting Indian style in the swivel chair, cleaning the blades of my faithful Fairbairn-Sykes daggers with a rag that used to be someone’s hundred percent cotton shirt. She surveys the party of dead bodies with variously perforated necks, torsos, and abdomens.
Eventually, she dryly points out a big, muscled guy lying half under the desk. “That one is still alive.”
I glance at the breathing exception and admit: “He has a green jacket.”
Mithra looks at me like I am the weird one.
“What?” I shrug. “I like green, but that jacket wouldn’t fit me.”

When I was young, I used to chafe at home. I would run away to other countries, meet strange people, thoughtlessly risk my life… fall in love.
I’m still young, if age is but a number.
However, these days my feet seem to stick to the same paths over and over. Through the wrought iron gate, up three quarters of the slope, to my pole – the needle of my internal compass always points in this direction.
I’ve moved to this city so I could spend time with him.
I touch the gravestone with my fingertips and tell him: “Hello, lover.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll rip your arm off and hit you in the face with your own elbow.”
The wailing sobs rapidly cut off. I check on the surviving hostage. He’s not dead, although he looks it, bathed in the villain’s arterial spray.
“I think I pissed myself,” he informs me.
I don’t ask God for patience only because I’m an atheist. “Do you realise what I’m trying to do here?” I glare down at the balled up string of wires.
“Stop the bomb blowing?” he guesses.
This would be so much easier if my hands weren’t shaking.

Almost midnight, but lights are still on. Brace myself. Ring the bell.
Try to listen for footsteps, but cicadas scream loudly enough to wake the dead.
Finally, there’s a rustle. The door opens and despite sunglasses I must squint against the brightness.
Granddad huffs: “Look what the cat dragged in!” but he grabs me and pulls me inside. I’m kissed. Smiled at. I belong.
In my grief I pushed away everyone – except those who would not let go. And Genet, may he rest in peace, was the one who taught me to see how lucky I am to have them.

It’s disgusting how much of my life consists of exercise.
I like capoeira and knife-fighting feels cathartic, but I’m not doing another sit-up today. Bored and achy, I deserve a bath, a book and a pizza.
Whose brilliant idea was it to establish a secret identity? The office hours are crappy. The people I meet crappier. And even though I refuse to appear in public wearing only a swimsuit or a skin-tight latex overall – I’m not getting
paid nearly that well – there’s a sort of general expectation that superheroines should be in perfect shape.
For kicking arse, though. Not modelling.

Holding onto my bruised ribs, I watch as Mithra remands Genet’s murderer into the hands of the police. It’s finally hitting me.
Genet was an autocrat. Without him, I’m once again aimless.
“Are you hungry?” Mithra asks, pausing next to me.
A confused policeman is loading the perp into the back of the cruiser.
I nod. “A bit.” Hungry. Cold. Exhausted. In pain. In need of loads of alcohol.
Sad.
“Follow me,” she commands. “I’ll feed you.”
I surprise myself by obeying - but I need someone to take care of me, and sometimes care comes in the form of orders.

“I don’t need a psychology degree,” I protest. Just my luck that Genet’s using me to satisfy his unfulfilled yearning for progeny, not trying to fuck me.
“You need years of intensive therapy,” he informs me benignly. “This is the next best thing.”
*
Half a decade later I know he was right. Genet rebuilt me into a whole, vaguely sane person.
Genet also taught me this: “Look through the subject’s eyes. Speak in his voice. Don’t become him – but fill the inside of his skin so precisely, no one would notice the difference. You know his weakest spots.
“Now strike.”

“Pacts with the Devil need not be honoured!” the priest snaps.
“So, you’re less honourable than the Devil?” I’m not surprised. “He tends to keep his side of agreements.”
“My child-”
“This is why some people consider Church the Devil in our lives. You might have a lease on this place for the next decade, but they want to build a business centre right here and the convent is sort of in the way.”
The priest pales in stark contrast with his robe. “W-what should I do?”
“Hire a bodyguard.” Leaving, I press a business card into his trembling hand.

He’s a sum of what he’d ever been.
An ordinary baby. A skinny little boy. Son, brother, friend, student… I’ve never known any of them, but they’re mirrored in my lover. Sharp teeth and a sharp sense of humour. Strong arms and a strong protective instinct. Rebellious hair and a rebellious nature.
I know the smell of his tears and the taste of his laughter.
People tell me, it’s been years, I should be over it. But the fact that he’s dead doesn’t change the sum of all he’d ever been.
It just means there won’t ever be any more.

How do you live with half a heart?
It must be possible. I know plenty heartless people, and they have no problem living. I’m one (half) up on them.
So, half of your heart suffers exitus and leaves for Eden after a short stint in Purgatory… and life becomes Hell on Earth. A Hell of your own making. I suppose I could follow him, but the idea feels off.
Maybe I’m punishing myself by living?
Or maybe someone mixed a little bit of Heaven with a little bit of Hell, and made me this bottle of sixty proof.
Right, Yorick?