10
"Why would you want to hang out with some old guy anyhow?" he asked her, scowling at the large man who stood still behind her like he'd been caught doing something wrong.
"He's not old," she protested. "He's mature. I like that in my men."
"Your men? You're just a kid. What do you know about men?"
"I know they're a far cry from little boys."
He snorted. "Probably not as far as you think. What's wrong with me?"
"You're a boy," she told him dismissively. "And not even a real boy—just a Quasar."
"What does that mean? I'm real enough."
"Not really." She gestured about. "Especially here. Nothing's really real here."
"I beg to differ," he told her, crossing his arms over his thin chest. "Things here are a far cry from the reality you know."
"I didn't say they weren't!" she snapped.
"Feisty, aren't you? Little girl."
"I am not a little girl!" she choked, putting a hand to her throat. Her voice sounded different.
"Are you okay, beloved of my life?" Alex asked her, placing a hand on the small of her back.
They stood in an unfamiliar house decorated with warm woods and upscale country colors and patterns. Sunlight threw everything into a golden haze and her eyes flicked up to a mirror over the mantel where an elegant blonde woman stared back at her. "Alex?" she asked uncertainly.
His lips found the hollow above her collarbone and kissed it. Then he drew the tip of his nose up along her throat. "Yes, beloved?"
She reached toward the mirror, watched the reflection mimic her. "Wow."
"Oh, you like that?" he asked, tilting his head to kiss the edge of her jaw.
She looked at her hands. She was wearing a ring. She grabbed for his hands and found a slightly larger version on his own finger. "We're…you're my…husband?" The last word was barely louder than an exhalation.
He laughed. "Still, if it pleases you." He wrapped himself around her from behind and gazed into the mirror with her. "Oh, we're going to have such a wonderful time when the baby comes."
"Ba-" she coughed and her reflection was replaced with Peter standing before her again.
"Is that what you want?"
"No, I-"
"Too much too soon?" he asked her. "Wouldn't this be more to your liking?"
He gestured and she turned. At first she was startled to be confronted by a stranger, but then she saw the familiar eyes, the dimple on his chin. "Alex?" she asked, and the teenaged boy grinned at her bashfully.
"Hi, Macy."
Her hands flew to her face and she started laughing. "Oh, God, no! Really?"
Peter looked displeased. "You prefer him old? Too old for you?"
She looked again. Thirteen year old Alex was adorable with rumpled hair that refused taming, one tooth missing. "Okay, he's cute, I'll give you that, but…this isn't the guy I…"
"Fell in love with?" Pete finished for her.
"I'm…I'm not in love with him. It's just a crush. I know he's too old for me. We'll never be together-"
"But you could," he insisted.
She shook her head. "This is just my imagination. None of this is real."
"If he's what you really want, then you could be together if…."
She waited for him to continue. He turned slightly and stepped aside so Amanda could approach her. "You could be like us!" she enthused.
"Right. A Quasar. My father would love that."
"Wouldn't he?" Peter asked her. "Look at this girl here," he said, gesturing toward 169 like she was a fabulous prize to be won. "Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she perfect? Isn't she…powerful?"
"Yes, but-"
"Show me," he said, and they were back in the ArtReal gymnasium. Amanda wore charcoal grey skinny jeans with a lighter grey sleeveless knit top. Macy found herself dressed in a dark blue StarNet uniform like the one Dory sometimes wore. "Flight," Peter commanded.
Macy turned toward Alex's partner and repeated the command. Amanda lifted from the floor with a casual leap, and then crawled about upside-down on the ceiling for fun. They watched her duck through the soundproofing and vanish until she dropped down beside Macy, a solid passing through solids like they were mirages.
"Fascinating," Peter said, striding forward to poke the long-haired girl.
She cocked an eyebrow, reached through his chest, seized his heart and yanked him to her.
"Make her stop!"
"I can't control her," Macy told him. "Only Alex can."
He glanced left and Alex was there, striding forward. "Amanda, let him go."
She did, acting like it had been no big deal at all.
"She answers only to him?"
Macy nodded.
"So I answer only to Dorreen?"
"That's how they programmed you."
"Programmed?" he repeated. "You mean, like brainwashing?"
She shrugged.
"You don't know?"
"I don't work there! I'm just a kid!"
He paced before them. "What is this thing they have on me right now?"
She looked at him strangely. He gestured downward and she could see a molten metal band encompassing his chest. "That's a Ring of Pan."
"A what?"
"A controlling device. It's activated by a Pan Handler and it keeps you still and quiet."
It faded from sight. He pointed at Amanda. "He uses it on her, too?"
"Sure, but I've heard she can break them."
"How?"
"I don't know! Ask him!"
He ignored Alexander and his partner. "They're just memories of yours, just figments of your imagination."
"Oh. Right."
"Why do we have to have others controlling us?"
Macy told him, "Because you're not right. You think you're dreaming when you're awake, and like when you dream, you're prone to doing really weird and stupid things."
"This is an outrage," he grumbled. "And we were programmed this way so we can't take over or something, right?"
"No. Quasars have never been especially coherent."
"Then they're not doing it right. They're screwing up the process somehow. How many of us are there?"
"Two."
"Only two?" He turned to look Amanda up and down. "Are we part of a breeding program or something?"
"Ew, no," she said, very uncomfortable with the entire situation. "There were three of you. They don't make many like you. Most of the Quasars turn out like ghosts and they're short-lived."
He turned her way. "I have a life span?"
She backed up. "I don't know! I think they said Amanda might have only five to seven years."
"That's not enough," he said. "What happened to the third one?"
Around them the background shifted and changed. It darkened, startled drizzling, tall buildings emerged from the shadows. "He killed him," she said, pointing to where Alex had just been.
"The big one? The non-Quasar? How?"
"I think they said a microwave fell on his head, and then Alex used a flashlight to dissipate him."
He studied the new backdrop, then turned and said, "What? That makes no sense."
"I wasn't there," she said with a shrug.
"So, despite our abilities, we can not only be controlled, but killed."
"Seems so."
"Wrong answer," he snapped, and she imagined the pretty little boy was somehow older, larger, and dangerous. "I'm not going to be anybody's slave. Not now that I'm a god." The rain turned his hair into dark lines like claw marks across his forehead. "And I'm not going to die in five to seven years."
"Okay," she said, stepping back near an overflowing Dumpster.
"You have something…like me…about you," he told her. "But you're not like me."
"I'm just a kid!" she repeated.
"Where is this Alex and Amanda?"
"No one knows."
"What?"
"They traveled into space to help some aliens on another planet and no one's heard from them since. That was like four years ago."
Peter seemed to change back into his old self. "So, it's just me, then?"
"For now. Unless they return."
"Just me and Dorreen," he said, lifting his hands to crack his knuckles. "And you."