"committed" By A.r. Kirby -- Episode 26: "christian Takes The Stairs"

COMMITTED by A.R. Kirby

Episode 26 Christian takes the stairs

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he door leading to into the stairwell whooshed to a close behind Christian, silencing the buzzes, clanks and other sounds from the manufacturing floor outside. He strode angrily onto the landing, stopping just short of the top stair. The metal of the railing alongside the stairs was cool but not uncomfortable to the touch. He leaned on it with his left hand, looked down deep into the bowels of the Robotics Division (clean, well-lighted and Seamantium-lined bowels, but bowels nonetheless) and then closed his eyes.

Damned stupid robots... if they can’t get the lifts right, he thought, and stopped, quickly. The headache was a bastard, a tiny, almost pinpoint sustained burst of pain located directly behind the highest point of his right eye socket. It felt to Christian almost like it was burning. He rubbed his forehead and let his hand rest there for a moment, putting some pressure on the spot and wondering what to do next. A year ago, he would have just taken some aspirin and knocked back a highball before dashing off for whatever

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was next. He didn’t have time for self-analysis. Of course, that was before... To call Christian a changed man would be pure folly. In the space of a year, he had gone from being a relatively unknown lower-upper-class playboy from an eastern European backwater to a worldwide celebrity and business tycoon. He was a hero in Montenegro, not only because of the attention (and money) he was bringing to the small country, but also because of his philanthropic efforts throughout the region. Streets and schools were being named for him, and there were some quiet suggestions that the young Godspodin McKenna would make a fine figure on the political stage as well. It had been, without a doubt, a good year to be Christian McKenna. Not all of Christian’s changes were as public, or as pronounced. Of course, there were the powers, the telepathy and the telekinesis. Those gifts had served Christian well during the past year, and how. But the events of the day at the smelter provided other gifts as well. He’d come through that experience with drive and passion he’d never felt before, along with a clarity of purpose that was unequaled anywhere in the world. These new inward traits, when combined in Christian’s mind, created an unusual (and most-likely unintentional) aftereffect. Christian now often found himself thinking about... things. Himself a lot, too. How he was feeling about whatever it was he had just done, and so on. It 2

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wasn’t something he necessarily liked to do, but he did it anyway. Some of his reluctance was genetic; he was from a line of generations of McKenna men who earnestly believed male feelings were the lone province of pansyboys and thoughts should go no deeper than the bottom of your whisky glass. Why else didn’t he like it? Because Christian rarely liked what he thought about. Being a media darling and the face of a nation was difficult. Doing that while executing a life-changing -- no, world-changing -- plan was exponentially more so. The thinking it required often made Christian’s head hurt. There was so much to do, and so many things to handle, it would make anyone reach for the Tylenol. But this... this bastard of a headache came from somewhere else. It wasn’t the first time, either. Headaches like this had come and gone for the past six months or so, along with a small tic in the corner of his left eye. The tic was random, and never lasted very long, but the headaches could go on for days if Christian let them run their course. They weren’t debilitating, but they were very painful. After several episodes, Christian learned that the headache was usually caused by some aggravation deep inside him. If he could think about it and address it, the pain would go away. Christian’s arm relaxed on the railing. His anger was dissipating, and his breathing became more regular as he started to mentally sift through the jumble of everything that was running around in his head and bothering him. 3

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His first candidate was his anger at the continuing saga of the snail-paced lifts. He dismissed this, along with his violent outburst a few moments before (directly related to said lifts) as the cause. It had to be something more meaningful than that, something deeper. But I did concentrate really hard when I was playing paddle tennis using that smarmy maintenance bot for the ball, he thought, and smirked to himself. Other maintenance bots might get the unit up and running again by midnight, but Christian thought it doubtful. Nobody -- not even a robot -- gets smart with the boss, especially when it’s your mistake and the boss is bad-tempered with otherworldly powers. Even so, Christian knew that wasn’t the answer. Something else, something deeper, was causing Christian’s discomfort. But what? He huffed out an exhale and opened his eyes, trying to clear his head, hoping to blow out the rest of his anger. It seemed to help. A little. He let go of the railing and slowly crossed his arms in front of him. He took a slow, deep breath in through his nose, and as he did, he began to rise upward, his heels leaving the floor a moment before his toes, until he reached a point about six inches above the landing floor. Another smirk. Christian glided slowly out above the first two steps, then started downward, traveling on a line parallel to the stairs. He reached the first landing and 4

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floated around it to the left in a graceful circle, his body tilting inward slightly as he went around the curve, then righting itself as he headed down the next flight of stairs. Christian liked levitating. He’d practiced it so much that it had become as natural as walking for him, and took less effort or attention. It had not always been this way. Not long after that fateful day at the aluminum smelter, early on when he was just beginning to grasp the extent of his powers, he learned he could use his telekinesis on himself. There were, understandably, some minor mishaps at first, but soon Christian found he could propel himself almost anywhere he wanted. He even tried some high-altitude work, but found it made him dizzy. The Professor, on the other hand, didn’t like it when Christian rose above her, in a literal sense. “I hate having to bend my neck to look up at you,” Anna told him matter-of-factly one day as they were heading down the corridor together. “I feel like I’m talking to your upper arm. And having you float along like that is simply unnatural and irrational. I am a woman of science. You are a man of ... of something else. We compliment each other very well. But this,” -- she looked up at Christian’s head, then down to the space below his feet -- “This stretches my boundaries of credibility.” As a result, Christian rarely levitated when The Professor was around, and never in public. But he did it often around the Robotics Facility, providing a subtle reminder to the human personnel in the facility just who it was that they worked for, and what he could do. 5

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Down, down, down, ever further downward he went, skimming over the tops of the gleaming stairs, his dour mood in complete opposition to the shimmering Seamantium construction and cheerful lighting of the stairwell Saturday, he finally thought as he went around yet another landing. Of course. The bastards took my Saturday. Christian liked to keep standard business hours, though that became less regular as the pressures of running a global business grew. But he had his weekends. His weekends were sacrosanct, a time to relax, recharge and prepare for the challenges of the week ahead, and there had better be a damned good reason for him to be bothered between 5 p.m. Friday afternoon and 8 a.m. Monday morning. What would have happened this particular weekend, what should have happened, was this: Christian purchased a new fifty-foot sloop the week before and it awaited him on the coast. It was brought in directly from the manufacturer and docked yesterday at what used to be Seamus’ seaside villa. The forecast for Saturday afternoon called for rolling swells, sunshine, and 10- to 12-knot winds, and Christian was quite looking forward to seeing Anna sunning herself on the bow while he captained them around the Adriatic. Of course, none of that happened. It was those stupid git kids gone and ruined my 6

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weekend, he thought to himself. Should’a let the pissbots loose on ‘em. Gone ahead and started the party early... Christian smirked at the thought of what might have been. But he hadn’t done a thing. Rather than unleashing his master plan before the appointed time -- starting specifically with the group of long-haired, chanting students rallying against MME outside the company’s front gates -- Christian showed restraint. He allowed the students, about one hundred of them in all, to have their little demonstration against MME’s alleged influence on the workings of the Montenegro government. He even smiled through the hisses and catcalls when he went to the gates to address the crowd, promising to listen to their grievances. There were even more boos when he turned to leave, and had to subtly use his mental powers to deflect a well-tossed tomato. He grimaced as he left, but kept his murderous thoughts in check. Such actions were necessary in the grand scheme of things. There was no need to show his hand to crush a handful of idealistic neo-Marxist students while the world went about its business blissfully unaware. What I don’t get is why they wanted to demonstrate in the first place, he thought. MME’s rise during the past year had been nothing less that meteoric, and as the driving force behind the company, Christian reaped much of the benefit. Publicly, he was seen as the face of a new eastern Europe, one that was young, savvy, and ready for responsibility. He was almost universally loved throughout Montenegro and he was admired around the globe. 7

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So why the hell would those obnoxious students feel the need to demonstrate? The whole damned world loves me. More stairs and landings passed by unnoticed and Christian continued his pondering. This whole double life thing isn’t exactly simple, he thought. Is that it? The response was an immediate No. Christian relished his dual roles. When he was in the spotlight, he positively gleamed. He manipulated it, loved it, used it to his advantage to keep the buzz high about MME. Keeping up the smiles and the lies came naturally to him. In the other life, away from high finance, power lunches and a public profile, he also excelled. The Plan was coming along beautifully. It was diabolically simple, and he was doing a fantastic job putting all the pieces in place. He moved between the two lives easily and effortlessly. Leading a double life was definitely not one of Christian’s problems. All right, Christian McKenna, he said to himself, if it’s not the double life that’s giving you these damned headaches, and everything with The Plan is coming along all well and good, then what the hell is it? Is it Anna? Another resounding No. You don’t like something about The Plan or how it will work? No. The Plan is what it is. You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. This time, it’s just a hell of a lot of eggs. And the eggs are people. A hell of a lot of people. 8

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It’s not like I’m ending the human race. I’m saving it. What must be done has to be done, and I’m the one chosen to do it. So what is it? What? There was nothing for a few moments as he floated silently, nearing the bottom of the stairwell. Then, suddenly and quietly, almost in a whisper: After. For the first time, Christian thought about what would happen after The Plan was put into motion. He had been so busy making preparations for The Plan, so engrossed in the details, so busy keeping up the face that the public loved, that he had never thought about what the day after would be like. It’s all going to end, he thought. I’ll still be here, and so will Anna, and a few more, but all of this is going to end. All the adulation, all the power, everything. Everything! And I’m going to be the man to do it. Mentally and emotionally, the realization hit him like a lightning bolt. Physically as well. The very idea caused a small neuron deep in his brain to short-circuit, causing both his eye to twitch (to which he’d become accustomed) and a violent spasm in his left leg (for which he was completely unprepared). As his leg flailed wildly, the toe of Christian’s wingtip caught one of the support bars holding up the stairwell railing, causing him to fall clumsily down the last flight of stairs. He paused for a few moments, waiting to untangle himself from against the door. He finally 9

Committed by A.R. Kirby

collected himself, stood up, and dusted himself off. He hadn’t taken any damage in the fall. He took a deep breath and gestured at the control panel inset to the right of the door, which then opened with another whoosh. He smirked yet again, this one spreading slowly into an evil grin. I got millions -- millions -- o’ them killer pissbots all over the world. I got more money than God. Everybody knows who I am. Da always told me to think big, and this is as big as it gets. I’ll be damned. I’ll be king when all of this is said and done. He stepped through the waiting doorway. And After won’t be quite so bad after all. To be continued...

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