BZRK (BZRK 1)

and Noah was not. Noah was a kid whose only training was in video games, footie, and the arcane art of barely scraping by on schoolwork. He had been in three fights in his life, the first when he was nine and an older boy had called his mother a MILF. That had cost Noah a black eye and a torn ear. The other two had involved eruptions on the football field and had ended when teammates pulled him back.

War? That was Alex, not Noah.

Not Noah: Keats. He supposed he’d have to look the poet up. Three poets suddenly in his life: Pound, Plath, and Keats. Did poetry drive people mad, was that it? And Kerouac. Not a poet, but another writer.

What a strange way to be following in Alex’s footsteps.

Would his brother notice when Noah missed his scheduled visit? Would some part of him guess where Noah had gone? Would he be proud? Or would he yank on his chains and shriek a mad warning about the nano and Bug Man and BZRK?

At some point jet lag reached for him and dragged him down hard and fast and he fell asleep.

Plath, pacing her room, did not.

Could they read her thoughts? She tended to believe they could not. But that didn’t mean they weren’t watching her pace.

If they were reading her thoughts like a Facebook page, these would be the status updates:

I am completely alone. I feel scared, also liberated.

Renfield is an asshole.

Ophelia and Renfield are playing Good Cop/Bad Cop to gain my trust.

I chose “Plath” for myself so they chose “Keats” for the boy with the blue eyes. That was deliberate: they want us to be a team.

My arm hurts like hell, can I get an Advil or six?

What next?

Across town, in the Tulip, Charles and Benjamin Armstrong used very old-fashioned tools to organize their thoughts: 3 × 5 cards.

Coordination, fine motor skills—and gross motor skills, too, for that matter—had always been difficult for them. Each had an eye. But a single eye does not allow for depth perception.

Each had an arm. But writing sometimes requires two arms, one to hold the paper in place.

The Twins had struggled to master writing. Keyboards and pads were easier. But Charles and Benjamin valued the pain of overcoming difficulty. Life had always been hard for them. Anything physical had been difficult and sometimes humiliating. On the day many years earlier when the seventeen-year-old Twins had smothered their grandfather with a pillow, they’d had great difficulty coordinating the action.

Old Arthur Armstrong had raised the boys on a diet of paranoia and reckless self-indulgence. They had loved him in a way, and he had been proud of them.

He had asked them to end his pain-wracked life, and they had agreed, but only on condition that they immediately inherit Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation.

Arthur had beamed with pride. He had raised them right: if they were to kill him then, by God, they had a right to demand a payment.

Still, when the time had come, it had been hard to manage. The old man was near death, but still some panicky instinct drove his body to spend its last energy struggling. And with two uncoordinated hands, it wasn’t easy to hold the pillow down long enough, hard enough, to complete the suffocation.

The cards now before them bore carefully handwritten notes in felt-tip block letters:

POTUS

PM OF U.K.

PM OF JAPAN

CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY

PRESIDENT OF CHINA

PM OF INDIA