A Cheerful Giver
Part 5
When Foggy woke, he could feel without even opening his eyes that his Murdockmeter was up to eleven again. He could hear Matt breathing, too, whistling painfully every time he exhaled. There was also a smell of stale urine, which answered the question that Foggy hadn’t known he’d had about whether the guards took Matt out for bathroom breaks. Feeling sick both physically and mentally, Foggy sat up, wincing at the twinge in his chest, and scooted as far away from Matt as his chain would let him. Even as shackled as he was, Matt was still deadly dangerous, and he seemed to have it in for Foggy.
Foggy supposed he wouldn’t be too happy, either, if he were in Matt’s place. He fantasized briefly about lashing out at Francis in the same way, but when Francis actually appeared, bringing a fast food lunch that he handed to the guard, Foggy just glared at him for a moment before looking away.
“How long are you going to keep him here?” he asked. “Until one of you kills him by accident?”
“Until the boss says he’s satisfied,” Francis reported.
“And will he ever be satisfied?” Foggy asked. And to think he’d been worried about enabling Matt. Now he was being forced to enable Francis, which was much worse.
Francis didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, “Heal him again, without being forced, and I’ll unchain you.”
“You’ll let me go free?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I’d unchain you. You can stretch your legs, sleep on the mattress instead of on the cold, hard floor, get something to eat, even go to the bathroom.”
“As your prisoner,” Foggy realized.
“Your situation can get better,” Francis said, “and it can also get worse. A lot worse.”
“You know, I always thought you were a nice guy,” Foggy said. “When did you turn into such a dick?”
“When did you turn into such a wuss?” Francis retorted. “It’s a different universe over here.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Foggy quickly realized that his chances for any kind of escape would be better if he weren’t chained. He didn’t know what he could do about Matt, but at least he had to give himself the opportunity to try. Making a show of his defeat, which wasn’t difficult, he shrugged, and although he hated to ask, he made himself say, “Hey, do me a favour and hold him down, would you, so he doesn’t kick me again?”
Francis smiled and said, “Sure.”
Then he rolled Matt onto his back and knelt down with one leg pushing on Matt’s throat. “Go ahead.”
Foggy moved only as close to Matt as he needed to reach out one hand and touch his foot, and as soon as the healing was over, he scrabbled hastily backwards. Matt twitched, but didn’t fight back otherwise, and when Francis stood up, he rolled onto his side, coughing and gasping for air. Having Matt choked half to death wasn’t what Foggy had envisioned when he’d asked Francis for help, but he had to admit it had kept Matt from lashing out and breaking yet another of Foggy’s bones. This Matt, Foggy reminded himself. He had to keep telling himself that it was a completely different Matt, one that had never met Foggy. He wondered vaguely if this Matt had any friends at all.
Francis was true to his word, and called the guard to unlock the chain from Foggy’s ankle.
“Don’t start in on him until I’m back. I’ve got something special in mind for the boss,” he said, indicating the tripod with the camera, then accompanied Foggy over to the mattress. There was a bag of Chinese takeaway there, ready to eat, but Foggy had barely taken two bites before he heard the guards start their torture again. Matt grunted, then screamed, and Foggy dropped his fork, his appetite gone. Thinking he might be sick, Foggy stuck his fingers in his ears and crawled to a corner a few feet away from the mattress. Blocking the sound helped a little bit, and so he began to hum as well. Eventually, his stomach settled, and he sighed.
Post-healing fatigue was starting to pull at him, and Foggy was just about to go back to his mattress and lay down when he realized he’d been staring at a pocket pencil sharpener the whole time, abandoned in a little pile of dust and debris in the corner. He hadn’t seen one of those since, what, elementary school? He remembered how he’d loved to twist his pencils inside them, and watch the razor blade shave off thin layers of wood and graphite. Razor blade? Foggy lunged forward and grabbed the sharpener. Yes, there was one in there, tiny, but still useful. If worse came to worst, he could always cut his own throat, he thought, though things would have to be really, really bad for him to actually do it. He’d never contemplated suicide before. Hopefully, that little blade would be big enough. He stood up, positioned the sharpener, then brought the heel of his shoe down on one side so that the plastic cracked. With a little twist, he managed to pull the casing apart so that the blade was more accessible.
Matt cried out again, a sobbing, begging kind of cry that made the hairs on the back of Foggy’s neck stand up. He remembered how Matt had asked him to kill him … or let him go. Foggy didn’t think he was capable of killing anybody, especially not Matt, no matter which version of him it was. No matter how badly he wanted to help. He didn’t even think he could kill Francis when it came down to it, unless it was by accident during self-defense. Nor could he overpower all five guards, find the keys to the padlocks and the handcuffs, and let Matt go. But if he could get the razor blade to Matt somehow … Matt would be capable. Matt would even be able to slit his own throat if that was what he preferred.
But for now, Foggy had to sleep, or he wouldn’t even be capable of slipping the blade into Matt’s hands. He stuffed the broken sharpener into his pocket and dragged himself back to his mattress, then fell asleep to the sound of Matt’s ragged screams.
He awoke feeling drained, and reached immediately for the cold food, shoveling it urgently into his mouth and only slowing down for the occasional gulp of lukewarm Coke. Halfway through the meal, he became aware of the guard watching with an amused smirk on his face, and when he’d finished, the guard mockingly asked, “Want any more?”
“You got any more?” Foggy asked, then said, “Actually, I need to go to the bathroom first. It was over there, right?”
The guard stood up from his chair, ready to accompany him, and Foggy stepped beyond the plastic sheeting. Matt was on his back on the floor, his hands at his sides. One of his arms was so badly broken that the bone was sticking out, and Foggy felt sick at the sight. He wondered if his gift was enough to heal it properly, and imagined himself trying to pull it straight. At least it would give him the chance to put the razor blade into Matt’s hand, he thought, and then he began to worry that Matt might use it against him. He had to try to get away, or at least have a plan before he helped Matt.
To his great surprise, the plan materialized in the form of Francis, waiting for him when he got out of the bathroom, and setting off Foggy’s Murdockmeter.
“You got a headache?” Foggy asked. He realized he’d felt the wrongness in Francis before, but had automatically ascribed it to Matt.
“Yeah, but don’t worry about it, I took some Tylenol,” Francis said. His voice sounded less precise than it had before Foggy had slept. “Just worry about him.”
“Did Grandma ever say anything about healing compound fractures?” Foggy asked. “Should I straighten out the bone first, or will it do it automatically?”
Francis sighed and put a hand to his head, covering his left eye. “Oh, shit, I dunno, Foggy.”
Remembering that the Francis from his universe had died of a brain aneurysm, Foggy closed his eyes and concentrated on his gift for a moment. The sense of wrongness inside Francis’ head was alarming, but it also gave Foggy an idea. He reached into his pockets with both hands, and curled the broken sharpener into his right palm.
“You hold him, I’ll pull,” Foggy said. They went over to Matt, and when Francis leaned down on Matt’s shoulder with both hands, Foggy saw him wince. Kneeling down, Foggy pressed the sharpener into Matt’s hand, sliding it into the little space where Matt’s fingers curled, then held it there. He used his other hand to grip Matt’s wrist, and then said, “One, two, three!”
Matt’s high, agonized screams and the feeling of the bones shifting was the worst thing that Foggy had ever experienced, and it took all of his self-control to keep pulling and re-aligning, until he was fairly sure that he’d got the arm more or less straight. He relaxed his grip without letting go completely, exhaled mightily in relief, and saw that not only had Matt fainted, but that Francis seemed dangerously close to it as well. Francis wobbled a bit as he pulled back, and his face was white under a layer of sweat. He sat back on his heels and took deep breaths.
All the better. Foggy let his healing gift pour out into Matt’s arm, giving it all that he had, and when he was finished, he pressed the sharpener again into Matt’s fingers, happy to feel them react again now that Matt had recovered from his faint. But then Matt tightened his hand into a fist, and Foggy scrambled instinctively backwards, thinking he was winding up for a punch. When no punch came, however, Foggy realized that Matt was simply protecting the object. He leaned forward slightly, still wary, and spoke as softly as he could. “Matt, just wait until I get away, okay?”
Matt’s face reflected confusion, and Foggy thought it was as good an answer as he was going to get. Maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe it would. It was the best he could do, and it was out of his hands now anyway.
“Come on, Francis, give me a hand here,” Foggy said, making a show of getting Francis onto his feet again and trying to make it look like Francis was helping him.
“Wait until I get back,” Francis said to the guards, and they nodded, then went back to their various pasttimes as Foggy and Francis stumbled beyond the plastic sheeting and over to the mattress. Once there, however, Foggy did not sit down, but turned Francis to face him instead.
“That headache you have?” he said quietly. “It’s the start of a brain aneurysm. The pain you feel will just get worse and worse, until – boom!”
Francis looked almost too easy to convince, but Foggy went on to press his point. “Remember that the Frankie in my universe died from one of those? You’ll die, too, if I don’t heal you. I can feel it. I know it’s coming. Take me back to my universe and as soon as I’m there, I’ll heal you. But if you keep me here, I won’t. And you know how long I can wait, but do you know how long you have? Because I can sense that that thing could burst at any time.”
So what if he was exaggerating slightly? Francis wasn’t Matt, he couldn’t tell just by his heartbeat if Foggy were lying. But, not wanting to do overdo it, he stopped talking and simply waited, hoping it would work.
Francis was silent for a long minute before finally nodding. “Okay. Come on.”
Foggy fought the encroaching exhaustion as he followed Francis out of the warehouse and down a narrow alley that led away from the warehouse. It all looked so remarkably similar to his own New York City that Foggy couldn’t help glancing up at the evening sky, but he only saw the high, white trail of an airplane disappearing into the sunset.
“No zeppelins,” he said.
“No zeppelins,” Francis agreed, sounding as tired as Foggy felt. “Told you this wasn’t Fringe.”
“Well, damn,” Foggy replied, and Francis smiled briefly.
“Here’s the portal,” Francis finally said, pointing to a blue line on the pavement, right in the middle of nowhere.
Foggy looked down. “Is that it?”
“Nothing fancy, just a weak spot where the two universes collide.” Francis had started to draw out his S’s, almost hissing them. “And like I said, only people who don’t have a counterpart can cross over. So come on.”
He stepped over the line … and disappeared. Grinning at the sight, Foggy stepped over as well – and very nearly walked straight into the wall of a building that had suddenly appeared in front of him.
“Sorry,” Francis said, not sounding sorry at all. “Should’ve warned you. So, c’mon, heal me now, so I can get back.”
His speech had deteriorated noticeably, and Foggy wondered if it were due to the crossing, or if death were becoming more imminent. It didn’t matter. He took Francis’s hand and let the healing warmth flow into it, feeling his Murdockmeter slide down to nothing.
“Well, that should do it,” he announced. “Now you can get back and beat the shit out of that vigilante again without having to worry about your head exploding.”
“Thank you,” said Francis, reaching beneath his suit jacket. “Oh, and one last thing, Foggy?”
“Yeah?”
Francis pulled a gun out of the shoulder holster concealed under his suit. Foggy hadn’t noticed any shoulder holster before, despite his proximity to Francis, and he felt both stupid and betrayed when he saw it.
“Give me the healing gift,” Francis demanded.
“What? Are you crazy? If I give it to you, I’ll die!”
“If you don’t give it to me, I’ll shoot you in the leg and drag you back into my universe,” Francis said coldly, aiming the gun at the top of Foggy’s thigh. “And anyway, you won’t die. My Grandma lived for three days after she gave the gift to our Foggy.”
“Yeah, well, my Grandma died the minute she gave it to me, so if we average it out, that means I’ve got one and a half days to live if I give it to you,” Foggy snapped.
“Take it or leave it,” Francis said. “I’m going to count to three before I shoot.”
“I guess I’m screwed either way, but if I’m going to die, I want to die here,” Foggy decided, and reached out to put a hand on Francis’s head. Remembering how the gift had come to him, Foggy shut his eyes and imagined a pin jabbing a hole in Francis’s scalp. No, he thought, that wasn’t right. In his soul. A pinprick in the soul of a prick. But he’d promised, and so he opened his mouth and blew out a breath towards the tiny hole, exhaling the gift with it. And then it was gone, and he was left empty inside, empty, cold, and … dark.
Part 6
Foggy supposed he wouldn’t be too happy, either, if he were in Matt’s place. He fantasized briefly about lashing out at Francis in the same way, but when Francis actually appeared, bringing a fast food lunch that he handed to the guard, Foggy just glared at him for a moment before looking away.
“How long are you going to keep him here?” he asked. “Until one of you kills him by accident?”
“Until the boss says he’s satisfied,” Francis reported.
“And will he ever be satisfied?” Foggy asked. And to think he’d been worried about enabling Matt. Now he was being forced to enable Francis, which was much worse.
Francis didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, “Heal him again, without being forced, and I’ll unchain you.”
“You’ll let me go free?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I’d unchain you. You can stretch your legs, sleep on the mattress instead of on the cold, hard floor, get something to eat, even go to the bathroom.”
“As your prisoner,” Foggy realized.
“Your situation can get better,” Francis said, “and it can also get worse. A lot worse.”
“You know, I always thought you were a nice guy,” Foggy said. “When did you turn into such a dick?”
“When did you turn into such a wuss?” Francis retorted. “It’s a different universe over here.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Foggy quickly realized that his chances for any kind of escape would be better if he weren’t chained. He didn’t know what he could do about Matt, but at least he had to give himself the opportunity to try. Making a show of his defeat, which wasn’t difficult, he shrugged, and although he hated to ask, he made himself say, “Hey, do me a favour and hold him down, would you, so he doesn’t kick me again?”
Francis smiled and said, “Sure.”
Then he rolled Matt onto his back and knelt down with one leg pushing on Matt’s throat. “Go ahead.”
Foggy moved only as close to Matt as he needed to reach out one hand and touch his foot, and as soon as the healing was over, he scrabbled hastily backwards. Matt twitched, but didn’t fight back otherwise, and when Francis stood up, he rolled onto his side, coughing and gasping for air. Having Matt choked half to death wasn’t what Foggy had envisioned when he’d asked Francis for help, but he had to admit it had kept Matt from lashing out and breaking yet another of Foggy’s bones. This Matt, Foggy reminded himself. He had to keep telling himself that it was a completely different Matt, one that had never met Foggy. He wondered vaguely if this Matt had any friends at all.
Francis was true to his word, and called the guard to unlock the chain from Foggy’s ankle.
“Don’t start in on him until I’m back. I’ve got something special in mind for the boss,” he said, indicating the tripod with the camera, then accompanied Foggy over to the mattress. There was a bag of Chinese takeaway there, ready to eat, but Foggy had barely taken two bites before he heard the guards start their torture again. Matt grunted, then screamed, and Foggy dropped his fork, his appetite gone. Thinking he might be sick, Foggy stuck his fingers in his ears and crawled to a corner a few feet away from the mattress. Blocking the sound helped a little bit, and so he began to hum as well. Eventually, his stomach settled, and he sighed.
Post-healing fatigue was starting to pull at him, and Foggy was just about to go back to his mattress and lay down when he realized he’d been staring at a pocket pencil sharpener the whole time, abandoned in a little pile of dust and debris in the corner. He hadn’t seen one of those since, what, elementary school? He remembered how he’d loved to twist his pencils inside them, and watch the razor blade shave off thin layers of wood and graphite. Razor blade? Foggy lunged forward and grabbed the sharpener. Yes, there was one in there, tiny, but still useful. If worse came to worst, he could always cut his own throat, he thought, though things would have to be really, really bad for him to actually do it. He’d never contemplated suicide before. Hopefully, that little blade would be big enough. He stood up, positioned the sharpener, then brought the heel of his shoe down on one side so that the plastic cracked. With a little twist, he managed to pull the casing apart so that the blade was more accessible.
Matt cried out again, a sobbing, begging kind of cry that made the hairs on the back of Foggy’s neck stand up. He remembered how Matt had asked him to kill him … or let him go. Foggy didn’t think he was capable of killing anybody, especially not Matt, no matter which version of him it was. No matter how badly he wanted to help. He didn’t even think he could kill Francis when it came down to it, unless it was by accident during self-defense. Nor could he overpower all five guards, find the keys to the padlocks and the handcuffs, and let Matt go. But if he could get the razor blade to Matt somehow … Matt would be capable. Matt would even be able to slit his own throat if that was what he preferred.
But for now, Foggy had to sleep, or he wouldn’t even be capable of slipping the blade into Matt’s hands. He stuffed the broken sharpener into his pocket and dragged himself back to his mattress, then fell asleep to the sound of Matt’s ragged screams.
He awoke feeling drained, and reached immediately for the cold food, shoveling it urgently into his mouth and only slowing down for the occasional gulp of lukewarm Coke. Halfway through the meal, he became aware of the guard watching with an amused smirk on his face, and when he’d finished, the guard mockingly asked, “Want any more?”
“You got any more?” Foggy asked, then said, “Actually, I need to go to the bathroom first. It was over there, right?”
The guard stood up from his chair, ready to accompany him, and Foggy stepped beyond the plastic sheeting. Matt was on his back on the floor, his hands at his sides. One of his arms was so badly broken that the bone was sticking out, and Foggy felt sick at the sight. He wondered if his gift was enough to heal it properly, and imagined himself trying to pull it straight. At least it would give him the chance to put the razor blade into Matt’s hand, he thought, and then he began to worry that Matt might use it against him. He had to try to get away, or at least have a plan before he helped Matt.
To his great surprise, the plan materialized in the form of Francis, waiting for him when he got out of the bathroom, and setting off Foggy’s Murdockmeter.
“You got a headache?” Foggy asked. He realized he’d felt the wrongness in Francis before, but had automatically ascribed it to Matt.
“Yeah, but don’t worry about it, I took some Tylenol,” Francis said. His voice sounded less precise than it had before Foggy had slept. “Just worry about him.”
“Did Grandma ever say anything about healing compound fractures?” Foggy asked. “Should I straighten out the bone first, or will it do it automatically?”
Francis sighed and put a hand to his head, covering his left eye. “Oh, shit, I dunno, Foggy.”
Remembering that the Francis from his universe had died of a brain aneurysm, Foggy closed his eyes and concentrated on his gift for a moment. The sense of wrongness inside Francis’ head was alarming, but it also gave Foggy an idea. He reached into his pockets with both hands, and curled the broken sharpener into his right palm.
“You hold him, I’ll pull,” Foggy said. They went over to Matt, and when Francis leaned down on Matt’s shoulder with both hands, Foggy saw him wince. Kneeling down, Foggy pressed the sharpener into Matt’s hand, sliding it into the little space where Matt’s fingers curled, then held it there. He used his other hand to grip Matt’s wrist, and then said, “One, two, three!”
Matt’s high, agonized screams and the feeling of the bones shifting was the worst thing that Foggy had ever experienced, and it took all of his self-control to keep pulling and re-aligning, until he was fairly sure that he’d got the arm more or less straight. He relaxed his grip without letting go completely, exhaled mightily in relief, and saw that not only had Matt fainted, but that Francis seemed dangerously close to it as well. Francis wobbled a bit as he pulled back, and his face was white under a layer of sweat. He sat back on his heels and took deep breaths.
All the better. Foggy let his healing gift pour out into Matt’s arm, giving it all that he had, and when he was finished, he pressed the sharpener again into Matt’s fingers, happy to feel them react again now that Matt had recovered from his faint. But then Matt tightened his hand into a fist, and Foggy scrambled instinctively backwards, thinking he was winding up for a punch. When no punch came, however, Foggy realized that Matt was simply protecting the object. He leaned forward slightly, still wary, and spoke as softly as he could. “Matt, just wait until I get away, okay?”
Matt’s face reflected confusion, and Foggy thought it was as good an answer as he was going to get. Maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe it would. It was the best he could do, and it was out of his hands now anyway.
“Come on, Francis, give me a hand here,” Foggy said, making a show of getting Francis onto his feet again and trying to make it look like Francis was helping him.
“Wait until I get back,” Francis said to the guards, and they nodded, then went back to their various pasttimes as Foggy and Francis stumbled beyond the plastic sheeting and over to the mattress. Once there, however, Foggy did not sit down, but turned Francis to face him instead.
“That headache you have?” he said quietly. “It’s the start of a brain aneurysm. The pain you feel will just get worse and worse, until – boom!”
Francis looked almost too easy to convince, but Foggy went on to press his point. “Remember that the Frankie in my universe died from one of those? You’ll die, too, if I don’t heal you. I can feel it. I know it’s coming. Take me back to my universe and as soon as I’m there, I’ll heal you. But if you keep me here, I won’t. And you know how long I can wait, but do you know how long you have? Because I can sense that that thing could burst at any time.”
So what if he was exaggerating slightly? Francis wasn’t Matt, he couldn’t tell just by his heartbeat if Foggy were lying. But, not wanting to do overdo it, he stopped talking and simply waited, hoping it would work.
Francis was silent for a long minute before finally nodding. “Okay. Come on.”
Foggy fought the encroaching exhaustion as he followed Francis out of the warehouse and down a narrow alley that led away from the warehouse. It all looked so remarkably similar to his own New York City that Foggy couldn’t help glancing up at the evening sky, but he only saw the high, white trail of an airplane disappearing into the sunset.
“No zeppelins,” he said.
“No zeppelins,” Francis agreed, sounding as tired as Foggy felt. “Told you this wasn’t Fringe.”
“Well, damn,” Foggy replied, and Francis smiled briefly.
“Here’s the portal,” Francis finally said, pointing to a blue line on the pavement, right in the middle of nowhere.
Foggy looked down. “Is that it?”
“Nothing fancy, just a weak spot where the two universes collide.” Francis had started to draw out his S’s, almost hissing them. “And like I said, only people who don’t have a counterpart can cross over. So come on.”
He stepped over the line … and disappeared. Grinning at the sight, Foggy stepped over as well – and very nearly walked straight into the wall of a building that had suddenly appeared in front of him.
“Sorry,” Francis said, not sounding sorry at all. “Should’ve warned you. So, c’mon, heal me now, so I can get back.”
His speech had deteriorated noticeably, and Foggy wondered if it were due to the crossing, or if death were becoming more imminent. It didn’t matter. He took Francis’s hand and let the healing warmth flow into it, feeling his Murdockmeter slide down to nothing.
“Well, that should do it,” he announced. “Now you can get back and beat the shit out of that vigilante again without having to worry about your head exploding.”
“Thank you,” said Francis, reaching beneath his suit jacket. “Oh, and one last thing, Foggy?”
“Yeah?”
Francis pulled a gun out of the shoulder holster concealed under his suit. Foggy hadn’t noticed any shoulder holster before, despite his proximity to Francis, and he felt both stupid and betrayed when he saw it.
“Give me the healing gift,” Francis demanded.
“What? Are you crazy? If I give it to you, I’ll die!”
“If you don’t give it to me, I’ll shoot you in the leg and drag you back into my universe,” Francis said coldly, aiming the gun at the top of Foggy’s thigh. “And anyway, you won’t die. My Grandma lived for three days after she gave the gift to our Foggy.”
“Yeah, well, my Grandma died the minute she gave it to me, so if we average it out, that means I’ve got one and a half days to live if I give it to you,” Foggy snapped.
“Take it or leave it,” Francis said. “I’m going to count to three before I shoot.”
“I guess I’m screwed either way, but if I’m going to die, I want to die here,” Foggy decided, and reached out to put a hand on Francis’s head. Remembering how the gift had come to him, Foggy shut his eyes and imagined a pin jabbing a hole in Francis’s scalp. No, he thought, that wasn’t right. In his soul. A pinprick in the soul of a prick. But he’d promised, and so he opened his mouth and blew out a breath towards the tiny hole, exhaling the gift with it. And then it was gone, and he was left empty inside, empty, cold, and … dark.
Part 6