Indefinite Renewal Read online

  “It’s been over a week.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe we should do something.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What have you got planned?”

  “You’ll see. He’ll be back.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Thump.

  Nick’s eyes snapped open, and he froze under his covers, ears straining.

  Squeak.

  There was definitely somebody out there, somewhere in the front of his apartment—he didn’t have any pets, and he lived alone. His windows were closed, and besides, that was not the sound of shutters banging against the wall. He slid quietly out of bed, stealing a glance at the clock as he pulled his jeans on as quietly as possible. It was two-fifteen.

  Jeans fastened, Nick tiptoed barefoot to the bedroom door, which stood open a crack. Peering through that narrow gap, he could see a faint glow coming from his small living room, near the couch and television; it bobbed about, darkening and brightening as it shifted from spot to spot. A flashlight.

  Nick slid back out of sight and cursed silently. Great! First Amy and Daniel and that damned club, then a B-minus on his report, and now he was getting robbed! Nothing was working out this month! And his cell phone was in its charger—near the front door. He cast a desperate glance at the landline, waiting expectantly on its corner of his nightstand, and reviewed what one was supposed to do in this situation. Call 911? No, the burglar would hear him speaking and grab him before he could finish. Get back into bed and hope the burglar didn’t come in here? No, of course he’d come in here, where any jewelry and money would be, and then Nick would be helpless, wrapped in his covers like a pig trussed for the slaughter. Run out and charge him? Stupid as it sounded, that actually might work—it would certainly confuse the guy for someone to jump him when he was the one doing the robbing! Still, it was risky.

  Any further possibilities were cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps—he was coming in! Nick flattened against the wall, glancing around frantically for anything heavy enough to serve as a weapon, but his bedroom was pretty sparse. So he contented himself with hiding behind the door and waiting to grab the guy from behind when he came through.

  It felt like forever. The door eased open, bit by bit, and a dark-clad form slowly inched forward, flashlight in hand—the beam bounced off the far wall, gleamed across the window, hovered over the rumpled bed, shone on the framed posters and pictures. The man had stepped inside now, almost invisible even though Nick was staring straight at him, his feet silent on the carpet, and Nick pushed quietly away from the wall, balling his hands into fists as he prepared to attack. Then the other man turned slowly, as if he had sensed his presence, and Nick gulped air. It was now or never. Tensing his legs, he jumped.

  The burglar had turned almost completely by now, and his jaw dropped as he saw the half-clad figure coming at him, airborne in the shadows. Then Nick connected and they hit the ground together, Nick on top, fists flailing at the wiry form under him. The flashlight hit the ground and bounced once, its beam winking out as it hit again and rolled off somewhere in the returned darkness. The two men didn’t pay any attention—they twisted about, both swinging more or less blindly, grappling for control.

  Then the burglar turned, hand diving into a jacket pocket, and a second later something hard and cold slammed into Nick’s temple, sending him reeling back as pain exploded in his head. For a moment the room seemed brighter as small flashes ignited behind his eyes, and the floor spun madly, then he shook his head and his vision cleared enough to see the burglar standing a few feet in front of him. He was swearing, and there was a nasty-looking gun in his hand, its oiled black sides glinting malevolently even in the dim light. The bottomless hole of the barrel was leveled at Nick’s bare chest.

  “Shit shit shit!” The smaller man stepped forward and grabbed Nick by the hair with his free hand, dragging him painfully over toward the bed. “What the hell’re you doin’ here?” The gun waved dangerously close to his face, and Nick leaned back, pulse pounding in his ears.

  “I was sleeping—what the hell were you doing here?” Immediately he regretted saying it, and even more a second later when the gun connected with his cheek, sending fresh stabs of pain through his face and jaw and causing the room to momentarily dim as his vision swam.

  “There wasn’t supposed to be anybody here! Shit!” Nick considered asking where he was supposed to be at two in the morning if not asleep in his bed, but decided against it—his other cheek didn’t hurt yet, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  “Now what am I gonna with you?” The dark-clad figure exclaimed, and waved his gun again to silence any suggestions Nick might offer. “No, don’t even say I could let you go, ’cause we both know that won’t work—even if you swear not to talk, you know you’ll run straight to the cops, and then they’ll nab me for sure. I’ve already got a record, and I can’t do time again. If I knock you out, same thing—you’ll wake up with a splitting headache, and still run right to the pigs downtown. You identify me, and they put me away.”

  “I can’t identify you,” Nick protested through lips that had suddenly gone dry. “It’s dark in here, and I don’t have my glasses on—I can barely see you!” This was true—even now, with the burglar standing right beside him, the man was only a vague blur against the shadows, a figure with human shape but no definition, like the charcoal drawing of a man.

  That revelation made the burglar pause for a moment, the gun mercifully lowered as he considered the possibility. Then he shook his head and the weapon came back up.

  “Nope, sorry—you might be lying and have great night-vision, and your glasses might be only for reading, if you even have glasses. No, sorry, but I gotta kill you.” The burglar reached into his pocket and pulled out a small tube that he screwed onto the gun barrel, making it look even more sinister. A silencer, Nick realized, wondering how he could feel so calm at a time like this. That’s a silencer—he’s going to shoot me right here. Some immortality this is, to get shot by a damn burglar three weeks later!

  “All right,” the other man announced, stepping a little closer. “Come on, get into the bed.” Nick didn’t move—why bother? “I said come on!” the burglar demanded. With a growl he grabbed Nick’s chin, lifting up roughly to force him to his feet—

  —and time slowed to a trickle—

  —the gun fell to the ground as the burglar screamed, his other hand moving to tug the first free from its position against Nick’s burning flesh—

  —and Nick felt the energy course through him a second time. This time he welcomed it, feeling no pity for this little man who had been about to kill him, but instead a sense of ironic justice before even that was washed away in the surge of heat and force that flowed through his veins—

  —and the burglar convulsed, body spasming as he felt his life being sucked out of him, not in the little dribs and drabs of everyday living, but in one huge burst of relentless hunger—

  —and it was over. The empty husk of clothing dropped to the ground, crumbling as it hit the floor, and Nick swayed slightly, almost drunk with the euphoria he was feeling. Last time he had needed most of the energy to restore himself to health. This time he was already young and healthy, and it was all excess, floating through his system like liquid fire, making every nerve tingle with life, every hair stand on end. He felt as if he had just eaten an entire box of candy bars and drunk a full two-liter of Mountain Dew, light-headed as when he and Gordo had pulled that all-nighter last semester and wound up on the lawn at three a.m., giggling and muttering something about small green gophers and large purple armadillos.

  I could do it now. The thought skittered across his mind, dancing crazily before him, and Nick latched onto it even as his consciousness realized what he meant. Daniel had offered to show him what could be done, to help him remold his body, and he had refused, partially out of doubt that it was possible and partially out of disgust at using Amy’s dying energy for such a se
lfish, trivial purpose. But now he had drained a person knowingly, willingly, and could no longer doubt that this was real. And if this was real, why not the rest? Plus this man had not been a friend but a burglar, a thief and a killer, someone who had invaded Nick’s home and attempted to take his life—wasting such a man life’s energies on a frivolity would be fitting recompense.

  A part of Nick’s mind ranted about the uselessness of the idle rich and their silly self-improvement meditations, but he shut that part away and concentrated on the instructions Daniel had given him that day.

  It was easier this time to wrap himself in a warm blanket of energy, since his pulse was already singing with adrenaline and his skin was already warm with exertion and with absorbed energy. The mental picture of himself formed rapidly and clearly amidst the jumble of emotion and stray thought that swirled inside him. Then the image in his head expanded, chest and shoulders growing broader, arms and legs thicker, the whole harder, firmer, as Nick shaped the mental picture into the body he had always wanted. As he worked at it, another corner of his mind noted that the heat had intensified, sinking beneath his skin and into his body, and that his arms and legs felt as if they were aflame, the skin on his chest tightening from the invisible flames licking out from within to dry out his body and weather his skin into old leather. The heat pushed in some places, pulled in others, its capriciousness making him feel that he was the butt of some joke, that when he opened his eyes there would be men around him with hot pokers in hand, stabbing again and again while they laughed at his gullibility. Except that the heat didn’t hurt—it was mildly uncomfortable, the way an arm or leg felt after the cast had been removed, fresh and pink and a little numb, but it wasn’t painful, and it was slowly fading away as he thought about it. Finally the heat subsided to more normal levels, just a faint warmth around his whole body, and Nick opened his eyes. No old men, no pokers, only the same darkened room as before.

  His eyes sought the mirror behind his door, and he walked carefully toward it, feeling oddly heavy and slightly nauseated. Then he caught sight of himself in the reflection, and forgot all about the queasiness in his stomach and the ache in his arms and chest.

  It was all true. Nick had changed to reflect that altered mental image—his body was still slender, even lean, but covered in muscle, the coiled springs of a gymnast or a martial artist flexing and rippling as he raised his arm and tensed his legs. With long sleeves he would still look the same—a little broader of chest and shoulder, but nothing that remarkable—but he could see and feel the difference.

  He leaned against the wall to steady himself, and waited for his head to clear and some sense of reality to return—he no longer felt as charged-up, which made sense if, as Daniel had warned, he had burned off most of the excess energy performing this little alteration. Nick’s eyes strayed to the gun on the floor, its smooth metal sprinkled with the ash that was its former owner, and he had to laugh at the situation. More laughter followed quickly, too strong to control, and he let the hysteria take him, purging the fear and tension from his system as he stood in his bedroom, doubled over with laughter, clutching his sides to stop the pain.

  Finally he straightened up, took a deep breath, and wiped the tears from his eyes. Then he put on his glasses, flipped on the lights, and fetched his broom from the hall closet so he could start cleaning up.

  There was remarkably little mess—for some reason the dead man’s black turtleneck and black jeans had survived, although his running shoes had turned to warm rubber goo, and most of the ash was still inside the clothing. Nick simply scooped the whole mess into a trash bag, swept up the few outlying flecks, and tied the bundle neatly.

  He carried the bag outside, preferring to let his neighbors wonder why he was emptying trash at this hour to trying to sleep again with the man’s remains on the floor beside him, and then returned to the bedroom. He fished the flashlight out from under the bed, testing it to see if it still worked, and a bright circle of light on the far wall rewarded his efforts. He quickly shut it off, lest some curious voyeur see the light and call the cops. That would be perfect—to be arrested by cops for trying to rob his own room, moments after killing the real burglar without any help.

  Nick was surprised that he didn’t feel any guilt about the man’s death but put it down to the circumstances. If he could get someone to try and rob him every twenty years or so, he could live forever without ever worrying about whether what he was doing was right. A shudder drove that thought away, and he put the flashlight down by his bed, turning to the other surviving piece of evidence—the gun.

  It was a Colt 45, an automatic, Nick noted as he picked it up and checked the safety and the clip. The fact that he suddenly knew how to handle a pistol startled him before he realized that he must have absorbed the knowledge from the gun’s previous owner. He dismantled the weapon without thinking, operating on pure reflex and watching with a mix of fear and fascination as his hands performed the task with easy familiarity, laying all the components out on the floor in front of him. Spring there, clip there, chamber there . . . he found he knew exactly what he was doing, and inspected each piece for rust, nodding with satisfaction at the condition as he reassembled the gun and slid the clip back in. Not bad—especially since he hadn’t stripped and oiled the thing properly since a year or two after ’Nam.

  Nick placed the gun under his bed with the flashlight, feeling more secure now that he had a weapon in case anyone else ever broke into his home. Not that he needed one, really. Then he lay down and went back to sleep. His dreams were filled with swamps and jungles, and screaming men with blazing guns.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next day was a Tuesday and it passed normally, with class quiet but under control—Nick spent a large part of the morning and afternoon revising his paper to turn back in, then knocked off for pizza and a movie rental with Gordo. Wednesday was warmer, with Spring finally starting to live up to its reputation, and Nick forsook his usual button-down or sweater for a Chicago Bulls T-shirt.

  “Man! What the hell happened to you!” Hillary exclaimed when Nick entered their study area, and he immediately stopped and scanned himself as best he could, trying to figure out what she meant. Gordo glanced up at Nick as well and his eyes widened, lips pursing in a low whistle.

  “Damn! What have you been doing, popping steroids in the bathroom?” Gordo inquired, and Nick finally realized what they were talking about—he had already gotten used to his new physique but this was the first time his friends had seen it. They were obviously surprised, to say the least.

  Hillary walked around him now, inspecting him like a prize calf at a rodeo.

  “Not bad,” she admitted, nodding in appreciation as she returned to her seat. “Not bad at all. You been working out on us, Nicky boy?”

  “Well, yeah, a little bit,” he admitted, finally moving from the doorframe to settle in his seat. “I’ve been playing a little ball too, trying to get in shape.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly done that,” Gordo remarked a little enviously, eyes glancing regretfully at his own bulbous frame. “You look great, like some superhero or something.”

  “Yeah,” Hillary retorted. “The great Genetics Man.”

  “Exactly!” Gordo chortled, rubbing his hands together before spreading them wide in a sweeping gesture. “Faster than a speeding chromosome, stronger than an amino acid, able to leap DNA strands in a single bound—it’s a research assistant, it’s a T.A., it’s—Genetics Man!”

  “Stop it, you two,” Nick muttered, half-amused and half-annoyed at the same time.

  “Hey,” his twin remarked, nudging him in the side, “it’s too bad that bon-bon of yours disappeared—she’d drool to see you like this!”

  Nick stood up abruptly at that, almost knocking Gordo over as he raced to the door, down the corridor to the outer door, and onto the top of the outside stairwell. There he leaned against the cool stone walls and gulped air into his lungs, struggling to stop himself from shakin
g.

  The strength of his reaction surprised him, and he was sure it had shocked his friends. He knew Gordo hadn’t meant anything by it, but that last crack had really hurt, especially since it was basically Amy’s life that had enabled him to look like this at all. If he hadn’t absorbed her that night, if none of the craziness after that had happened, he would still look like his old self, but at least she would be alive. Besides, she didn’t care if he was built or not—she had liked his eyes, his hair, the way he brushed his fingers through it when he was thinking or nervous, the way he . . .

  Nick froze, fingers buried halfway in his hair. How could he keep forgetting that he had Amy’s memories as well as his own? A horrible thought struck him, and a quick mental check confirmed it, turning up yet another set of memories and feelings, those of a former Vietnam vet named Charlie Webster. The name meant nothing to Nick, but the fact that the man had turned to crime to make a living struck a chord, and a vivid memory of a fight in some victim’s apartment eliminated any lingering doubt. He had the burglar inside him as well!

  Not as strongly, it seemed—he could find the burglar’s memories if he wanted to, but they didn’t jump out at him the way Amy’s had—but they were there all the same, crowding Nick’s own thoughts until he felt that his whole personality had been packed into one corner of his head and was pounding on his skull in an attempt to get out.

  Holding his forehead in his hands and doubling over slightly, Nick slowed his breathing until it returned to a ragged semblance of normal, then straightened back up, hands dropping to his sides. Enough was enough—it was time for some answers.

  Hillary and Gordo were both still in the office when he got back, pacing and looking miserable. They looked up when he came in, and Gordo stepped forward, eyes sad and sincere in his round face.