Chapter 6 – No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A few days after the Metrolink incident, my phone was ringing off the hook.

They probably googled me after seeing my name on TV or something. When did I

become a reality TV star?

Anyway, I could group the calls into three main categories.

Group 1 – “We’re starting a school for the magically gifted and we’d like you to

teach.” Apparently, getting onto the 6 O’clock news would mean huge business for an

after-school tutoring center that also featured magic enlightenment. I don’t con people,

even if they want to pay me well to be conned. That’s all these school were doing.

Group 2 – “You are Jesus! You must heal me!” For the first day, I told them to

make an appointment. That when I found out that filling your waiting room with pet

parents and desperate nuts who think you’re the answer to all their problems is a bad

idea. I should have given my secretary hazard pay. Now, I leave it up to her.

I haven’t had anyone crazy in since that first day.

Group 3 – “We are the future! You must join our cause! Together we can…”

CLICK. Yeah, that’s when I usually hang up on them.

Group 4 – “Magic is of the devil! You must renounce your ways and turn to the

light! Repent and…” CLICK Oh man, I wish I could turn it off.

Group 5 – The Maharin Group. Ok, it wasn’t really a group of calls, but rather an

incessant stream of inquiry from the Maharin group. I don’t know if they had an

internship program, but every hour, seemingly on the hour, a different teenaged voice

would call and tell of a great offer. Obviously, there wouldn’t be any specifics, except of
course that it would be very financially beneficial. Part of me wanted to group these guys

with the tutoring centers, but something about them stood out. Maybe I’m clairvoyant

too.

Group 6 – This was the group of people who’d call for an appointment, come in

for a check, but have a little something different in mind. For example, I’d go in to check

someone’s ankle. I’d ask how they hurt it, but they’d say something like, “Hey, I saw on

the news that you helped out some people at that train accident. What was that like?”

Now they think I didn’t see them hit the record button on their favorite electronic

device, but none of them were James Bond. And I didn’t really feel like answering

questions, so I’d say, “Let’s focus on your foot. What happened?”

“Oh, I tweaked it playing basketball, but tell me, how has magic affected your

practice? Have you discovered any mystical healing techniques?”

I’d have kicked them out, but they’d always pay. None of them really got their

interview, but at least I got paid. I wished they could at least just be honest. If they were,

they’d get a swift ‘no comment’ but at least they’d still have my respect. In any case, I

fixed their little injuries. It’s my job.

Finally, after a week of telephone hell, I finally heard a familiar voice. “Hello,

Steve? This is Rachel. Rachel Hoffman, from UCLA?”

“Hey, Rachel. How’s life? You’re a prof now, right?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Facebook. What, you thought I was psychic?”

“Hey, after seeing you on the news, you never know.”

“Oh great. You saw me on the news.”

 “Well, I saw all of you on the news. Kevin was standing around in the back. As

well as… Ryan. How’s he doing, anyway?”

“You two don’t keep in touch anymore, huh?”

“Well, after, you know, right? It’s… yeah. But I’d like to see you guys

sometime.”

After all the calls, I felt suspicious. “What’s this about?”

“Ok, I know you’re probably getting a billion requests, but if you guys can show

me what you can do, that’d really help me a lot.”

“You want me to show you magic.”

Rachel’s voice softened. I knew she felt embarrassed to ask. “Yeah, if you could.

I know it’s probably not what you want, but if you’re going to show someone, why not

have it be an old friend?”

Damn, she was right. “What do you need?”

Her voice perked up in an instant. “Just come by sometime and I’ll show you

everything in my lab. My research is fascinating. I’m sure you’ll be thinking about it for

days.”

I doubted that severely. But. “Alright, let me check with Ryan and Kev and we’ll

be in touch.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll talk to you soon. And hey, it was nice to

hear from you again.”

“Yeah, nice to be in touch.”

Normally, this is where a phone conversation ends, but she spoke up. “Remember

when all of us would watch American Idol together in college?”

 I didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. “Yeah. Those were good times.”

“Yeah, they were.” She paused a moment, and then snapped back to reality.

“Hey, I’ll be in touch. See you soon.”

I decided that the following Monday would be a good day to visit. This was after

dealing with three whack jobs on Friday. I told Ryan at the end of the day, while he was

working his new job. Seems the window washers at my building had a problem. Seems

also that it’s pretty easy to get a job washing windows when you can walk on walls. So,

there he was, feet blazing with flames, sliding back and forth on the glass walls with a

squeegee. I’m sure the old window washers were pissed that he got the job, but with

Ryan walking on walls and juggling fireballs, they didn’t say a word.

I got his attention while he stood outside my window on the 15th floor by

knocking on the glass. I probably should have thought it was weird, but after what had

happened, talking through the glass from inside your office to a friend standing on the

other side of the glass seemed perfectly normal.

“Hey, Steve, check this out. I can get paid while doing surveillance on the city.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just don’t fall off, ok?”

“No problem.”

He started moving away, when I remembered. “Hey, dude, remember Rachel

from college?”

Ryan stopped in his tracks and sounded cold despite his burning feet. He said just

one word, “Why?”

“You know she’s back at school, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”
 “She wants us to swing by Monday.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Dude, it’s been a long time.”

“Really? You talk to Kari lately?”

Ouch. But I knew how to get to him. “She wants to see your powers?” Instantly,

Ryan perked up, but he tried to hide it. Fortunately, he sucked at poker.

“She wants to see me toss a fireball?”

“Hell, run on the walls or whatever else you’d like. I’m sure she’d be way

impressed.”

“Really?” Now he couldn’t keep his excitement bottled up. “Let me check my

schedule. Monday, right?”

Thing is, his schedule was wide open. Kevin was just as eager to show off, so

that Monday, the three of us walked through south campus, just like back in the good

days. Now, the southern part of UCLA’s campus is built around a large quad, with all the

science buildings forming the walls. This formed a function first sort of architecture,

especially with the older buildings. Up in north campus, where the law, business, and

English student hung out, there was a sculpture garden, and it just looked a lot prettier.

Rachel, being a rookie science prof, got a small lab in an old building in the

ugliest corner of south campus. But you can’t beat the memories inside an old building.

Kevin reminisced. “Remember Chem 11B in CS50? Didn’t you sleep in there every

day?”

I laughed because he was right. “Yeah, that’s the last time I signed up for a 9am

science lecture. Bad idea. There’s always more important things to do at night.”
 “Like work on getting Nintendo thumb?”

“Hey, I blame my parents. They never let me play growing up, so the second I

have a taste of freedom, I couldn’t stop.”

“A little freedom makes you go all apeshit and play till you get blisters on your

fingers, saving sleep for class, and doing anything in school but study?”

“Hey, I graduated. Everyone does something crazy in college – gaming, partying,

growing pot in your closet with a blacklight. Maybe learning how to control everything

is part of the process?”

Kevin nodded in agreement and there was a moment of silence. It was then that I

noticed that Ryan hadn’t said a word for some time. He just plodded in silence behind us,

looking like his mind was anywhere but in this corridor in Young hall. This wasn’t like

him at all, but I guess I couldn’t blame him. I just hoped he’d get better once they

interacted a little. He’d always been the proponent of “sink or swim.”

And the time to swim was now. I knocked on the door.

“Come in,” was the reply from the familiar female voice.

Ryan looked like he thought about bolting for a moment. But then he grabbed the

doorknob and swung the door open. And just like that, they were fact to face again, oh

ten years after that day. Things had changed, but he was still talented and as good-

looking as ever.

And she was still the tall, stunning, half-Japanese girl who was kryptonite to the

will of most men. Her smile was just friendly enough for guys to say hi, just exotic

enough for guys to have no clue what to say next. The only difference now was what he

called her. “Hello, Dr. Hoffman.”

 Even though she knew he was coming, the nervousness still crept through her

face. “Hi, Ryan, how are you?”

They stood in place for a moment, neither really knowing what to say or do. I

suppose when you see the guy you dated for three years before dropping the, “I’d like to

see other people” bomb and dating a young professor, that’d be awkward. Or if you saw

the girl who broke your heart, drove you into a depression, and made you fail a quarter’s

worth of classes, that couldn’t be too comfortable either. Oh yeah, add in the fact that

now each person either wanted to show off their powers or witness them? Yeah, welcome

to the plane of awkwardness.

Kevin was the good guy and broke the silence. He pushed past Ryan and gave

Rachel a hug. “Hey, Hoffman! It’s good to see you again. Wow, professor, all bigtime

with your own lab, get yourself hitched yet?”

Rachel laughed. “Thank you, yeah, the lab’s nice, but no marriage or well,

anything anywhere close to that yet.”

“Really? You couldn’t keep the boys off you in college.”

“Oh god, don’t talk to me about boys.”

“You’re going girls now? Wow…” This was said by Ryan. Rachel turned to him

and hit him in the arm, but he just smiled.

“Uh, Dr. Hoffman?”

It was then that we noticed another person in the room. He looked like us 10

years ago, just some undergrad looking for a research project.

Rachel walked back to a table and sat opposite him. “Sorry, Jason, now let’s try

again. What do you see?” Rachel held a card in front of him.

 “Um.” The kid focused, but it really just looked like he was constipated. “Is it a

dove?”

Rachel shook her head and turned the card – a cloud. “Sorry, Jason, looks like the

only way you’re getting into the study is as a tech.

Jason hung his head and stood. He took a step towards the door.

“Hey, Jason,” called out Kevin. “Want to help me out?”

The kid’s eyes lit up.

“Cool, why don’t you stand over there?”

Kevin pointed to a reinforced curve of concrete. It looked like a blast furnace or

some bomb testing facility. By the scratch marks on the stone, I was guessing the latter.

“Why don’t you stand over there, Jason?”

The kid stood in front of the wall.

“Ok, Rachel, you wanted to see what I can do, right?”

Rachel nodded.

A split second later, something shot from Kevin’s hand and slammed the kid

against the concrete. Though he was only 6 inches from the ground, he was freaking out.

Then again, if a giant imprint of a hand had flown from some stranger, pinning me to the

wall, I’d probably do the same.

It probably didn’t help also that everyone else seemed more interested in Kevin.

“Very nice, a projection spell. Sort of like Spiderman.”

“I can retract it too, check this out.” Kevin held out his hand. He made a pulling

motion, but nothing happened. “Hang on.” Still nothing.

 Ryan smirked at Kevin. “Good job. Now I have to cut him down.” A torch

emerged from Ryan’s hand as he walked towards the kid.

Now Jason was really freaking out.

I probably didn’t help when I said, “Bet you can’t cut him down from there.”

A look back from Ryan said ‘you’re on.’

“Oh yeah, I mean cut him down without barbequing his butt.”

I don’t think Ryan heard me. He focused on a fireball rising from his hand.

Everyone else in the room did the same, none focusing harder than Jason. Then the

fireball changed shape, resembling a hand. Suddenly, it shot out, burning through the

trapping, slicing the kid off the wall like a cookie cutter.

Rachel cheered. This made Ryan smile. I don’t remember much else since I was

laughing my ass off. I think Jason bolted out the door because he was nowhere to be

seen.

Once order was restored, Rachel turned to me. “Your turn, Steve. I saw the news

report but…”

“Hey, check this out.” Ryan cut her off and rocketed toward a wall, feet ablaze.

He slide up onto the wall and stopped, almost posing for his superhero photo op.

Rachel chuckled. “That’s really something, but I was hoping to see…”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Ryan then held his hands out to his side. Fireballs

rose from his hands and levitated in place. “I call this the twin-dragons firestrike.”

Before anyone could comment, the fireballs coalesced and formed two serpentine

dragons. Their fiery forms shot towards the concrete wall, baring their teeth as if to bite

immediately before striking the wall, coating it in a curtain of flames. They burned for a
moment, and when they subsided, the wall seemed a bit molten, maybe a little like lava.

It was pretty cool.

Though impressed, Rachel seemed a little annoyed. “That’s really something, but

I need to see Steve…”

“Wait, uh…”

“Are you serious? This is real research here!” Rachel paced a bit and muttered,

“You haven’t grown a bit.”

I sighed. “That’s not true.”

“No, he’s just being a dumbass.”

“Yeah. Because he’s trying to protect me.”

Rachel stopped in place, confusion starting to creep into her eyes. She turned to

Ryan, who looked away and slid back to the ground. She turned to Kevin, who nodded.

Finally, she returned to me. “Protect you? How?”

“You’d better sit down.” I hated explaining this. It never made sense to anyone

who didn’t see it, and if they saw it, it meant another annoying night. “Alright, you want

to see something? Check this out.” I grabbed a desk with one hand, and tossed it into the

air, bouncing it in my hand like a drumstick. Ryan looked like he was going to try to talk

me out of it, but after a few tosses, he sat down. “Now, it looks like I’ve got super

strength.”

“What else would you call it?” asked Rachel.

“I’m not sure, but my strength is staying the same. What I’m doing in adjusting

the mass of the desk. That makes gravity affect it less, making it lighter, and making it
seem like I’ve got super strength. I can also affect its density.” With that, I set the desk

on the floor and stuck my hand right through it.

“Can you also affect your density? Like, can you walk through walls?”

“Yes, but take a look.” I pulled my hand out of the desk. Black streaks ran down

from my palm to the fingers. I put my hand through a few more times. Even though the

desk stayed the same, more and more black streaks appeared on my hand.

Normally, the sight of this scares people. I don’t blame them – it scared me too. I

thought I had some weird disease or something, definitely something contagious. At the

Metrolink crash, I think there was so much blood everywhere that no one really noticed.

The one person who did thought I got into a gearbox or something. But Rachel seemed

more amazed than anything. She ran up to my hand and felt it, taking a close look at the

streaks. I guess that’s why she’s Dr. Hoffman.

“That’s interesting. Use of magic creates black streaks on your hand. This is the

first time I’ve seen anything like this.”

“Yeah. That’s because it doesn’t.”

“But I can see the streaks here.”

“Magic doesn’t put the streaks there.” I stepped away from the confused Dr.

Hoffman, pulling my hand away. I rolled up my sleeve and backed up against the

concrete wall. Holding out my hand, I nodded to Ryan. “You know what to do.”

Ryan wiped the jealous look off his face and focused. Then with a flick of his

wrist, he shot out a fireball that engulfed my arm in flames. Instantly, my forearm

became a blackened mass.

“Oh my god!” Rachel shot out of her seat. “Dammit, I need to call 911.”
 “No, you don’t.”

“But your arm’s… charcoal… 3rd degree burns…”

I moved my hand, flexing and wiggling my fingers. “No, take a closer look.”

It took a few tries. She kept trying to turn away, not wanting to look, but

eventually she realized that I wasn’t hurt, or burned or anything. Actually, it took Ryan’s

help. He grabbed my hand and waved it in her face. “Take a look, if he was burned, he’d

be dripping blood or fluids or something gross like that.”

“Not helping.”

“No, look, that black junk isn’t a result of magic use or an injury. That’s his

skin.”

Dr. Hoffman fought through her revulsion and took a look. Sure enough, that was

just my skin. Not that a weird mosaic of black, purple, and magenta was any better, but

at least it wasn’t dripping blood. I probably should have gotten mad at Ryan for calling

my skin black junk, but well…

“Yeah, Rachel.” I said. “My skins just that black junk you see. This normal

looking skin is artificial.”

She turned to a patch of normal looking skin. “No way. That’s way too good to

be plastic or makeup. It looks alive.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t alive. I just said it was artificial.”

Dr. Hoffman seemed unconvinced.

“This is what my brother made in his lab at MIT. It’s an artificial living skin that

connects with the lower layers of your natural skin. Or something like that, I never

totally understand him.”

 “But that’s impossible, and in a lot of ways. You can just put a patch over your

skin and have it draw nutrients from your dermis. Plus what about bare areas? Skin is a

complete covering, and the few orifices are specifically adapted. Any holes are quickly

sealed and healed. In order to do what you’re saying, you would some way to create a

complete cover of skin, or whatever you’d call it. I don’t know because it doesn’t exist.

We can only do patches now, and that’s a really complicated surgery.”

“But what if you had epidermal stem cells? What if you could implant cells one

at a time? What if you could fire them through the epidermis, making only microscopic

holes, and allowing them to form naturally, like they do in the womb?”

“Well, IF we had the technology to make epidermal stem cells off a person’s DNA

so his body would reject it, and IF we had some high-energy projection device that

wouldn’t fry those cells as they enter, then MAYBE after a forever long time, you

COULD do what you’re saying.”

“It takes a little over eight hours.”

“What?”

“For a new set of skin. I have to lie in a machine for eight hours, it blasts me with

a EM wave projecting the stem cells, an occasional spray to nourish, and everything is

good as new.”

“But that’s still impossible, it’d take an ungodly amount of energy.”

“That’s why we call it the reactor,” chimed in Ryan.

“Why reactor?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”

“It must be huge.”

 “Fills up half my house.”

“And it must have cost a fortune.”

I should probably have thought of this more. But I said, “My brother’s always

been able to get huge government research grants. Remember that lab I worked in over

the summer?”

“Yeah, you guys totally geeked out there. But this is still hard to believe. You’re

telling me that your skin is now that blackened whatever, what looks like your skin

comes from some giant machine, and … wait, how come your skin wasn’t burned by that

fireball?”

Ryan picked up a pen. “Check this out.” A burst of fire erupted in his hand,

sending the pen flying right through my hand. It stuck in the ground. “Now look at his

hand. Not a scratch. That’s because it automatically phases out if something’s going to

hurt it.”

I sighed. “You make my hand sound like some kind of robot. But yeah. Even if

it didn’t phase out, this black stuff is pretty strong. I mean, I never sunburn, I don’t get

blisters, hot water doesn’t scald. Unfortunately, the artificial stuff isn’t nearly so good.

Every time I use magic, it has a chance of degenerating. Especially when I phase or alter

something’s mass or density. The fake skin really doesn’t like that. Truth is, the fake

stuff looks great, but it’s junk. The black stuff is really something.”

“It just looks, well.”

“Terrible, yeah. And that’s why I take a hop into the reactor. Just like I’ll be

doing tonight.”
 Suddenly, Rachel looked to the floor and hung her head. “You’re going to have to

do that tonight because you showed me your abilities. I’m sorry for making you go

through that.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know, and hey, we’re friends.” Changing the subject, I

asked, “What have you found out so far? I mean, we can’t be the first people you’ve had

in here.”

This perked up Dr. Hoffman. “Well, the biggest thing is that these abilities aren’t

singular. I mean, it’s not like superheroes having super strength or speed or whatever.

You need to look at it like a spell you’re casting, and all you need to be able to do is cast

the spell.”

“I don’t get it. So, anyone can do anything anyone else can?”

“Not exactly. I might not be able to throw a 90 mile per hour fastball, but I can

toss a baseball around. It still takes special skill to do something real special.”

But now I got interested. “Then spells can be learned.”

“I think so. I haven’t found enough people with enough power to show anything

really significant yet, well, except for you guys.”

“Then… if there’s someone who can heal, I might be able to learn how to heal

my skin.”

“Yes, maybe, but…”

I didn’t hear the rest. I just though about maybe being free of this curse called my

skin. Just having a chance to look normal again would be enough. It’d be better if

everything was normal, but hey, I’d take what I could get. I thought about this all the
way home. I also had plenty of time to think at home since the reactor made it

impossible for me to get a good night’s sleep in there.

Still, as I stepped into my house, I had hope. Hope was replaced with annoyance

when I saw the reactor. Now, my house was never the biggest place – just a typical 3

bed, 2 bath home, though with a little backhouse where Ryan lived. But with the

machine’s sprawl, I had about the same amount of living space as him. One bedroom

was filled with the power source. My brother said it was safe, but I didn’t ask too many

questions. Huge wires formed an obstacle course in the hallway. A computer mainframe

or something clogged another bedroom. Tubes fed into a bathroom for a water supply,

and then to a purifier, taking out another room. But the biggest contraption sat in my

living room. It used to be a slick entertainment center, with a 53-inch flat screen, HD, 5.1

and leather couches. All that was gone. Instead, a giant, white UFO dominated the

space.

I had to phase that thing out just to get it into the house.

And I call it a UFO because it practically anal-probes me.

So, like many other nights, I stripped and stepped inside. For tonight, I tried to

comfort myself with the dream that Dr. Hoffman would find a way to teach me how to fix

my skin. It didn’t bring much comfort.