Chapter 17: Cycle Of Addiction

He intended to seek out Parker, but when Fresco's feet found the hall, the weariness returned. Instead, he dragged himself back up the staircase. With a jolt of dismay, he realized he couldn't remember which door was his. After a few false starts and embarrassed apologies when he peeked in where he wasn't wanted, Fresco stumbled upon the ancient, dingy bathroom. He made a mental note to remember its location, the smell of pine cleaner making his head swim. He found his door and hid behind it. A new tray appeared in his absence, loaded with a fresh sandwich and a large bowl of chocolate pudding. He took it to bed with him, able to stay awake long enough to finish before tugging the wool blanket over himself and falling asleep.

***

Fresco hovered over the City. His heart leaped as he saw the shining streets below him. He strained to reach it, but he was floating so high and it was too far. He finally gave up, taking the taste he was given with gratitude, his heart breaking when he floated higher and higher and out of sight of home.

And then the pain came, and he was lost.

***

Fresco spent the next several weeks in a spinning cycle of craving and want, peppered by waves of guilt so strong they were almost as crippling. There were times he felt great, punctuated by hours of screaming at them to give him Wasteland. During those times, Parker would get her you'll-thank-me-later look in her eye and lock him in his room. No amount of pounding or threatening would make her open the door.

After one particularly nasty bout, when Fresco fell into a sweating puddle of pain and self-hate, Parker came to him and held his hand for the rest of the night. He tossed and turned, torn by nightmares about the agony while also being taunted by the City and Justin's incessant voice. Every time he woke, gasping in the dark, Parker was there beside him, helping ease him back into sleep.

If the day was good, Fresco learned the jobs of the house and helped out. He found if he stayed busy, it was easier to fight off the hunger. It also made him feel worthy, like pulling his weight meant he wasn't the monster he still felt he was. Garris made a comment one afternoon how he didn't know what the media was talking about, Fresco's generation were the hardest workers he'd ever seen. Fresco wasn't the only one who found work eased the pain. Last Stand was usually spotless.

He gladly gave his blood to Garris for testing, as did all the kids in the house. But when Fresco asked about using his power, Garris warned him against it.

"It won't work," the older man told him, taking yet another vial of blood while the sun streamed in the dirty office window, dust motes dancing in the beam. Fresco was having a good day, a drowsy day, but didn't want to rest until he dug up answers of his own.

"But I have them," he said. "From what you said, I'm a telepath and a telekinetic, right? Hear and see stuff? Move things with my mind?"

"Yes to both," Garris said, removing the rubber strap from Fresco's arm. He pushed a cotton ball into the tiny hole the needle left. "Put pressure on that."

Fresco bent his arm, fingers securing the cotton while Garris marked the tube of blood and filed it in a beat up old minifridge. Someone painted a happy face on the front so long ago the color was chipped and faded, the smile's missing gaps turning it into a demented clown grimace.

"I think that may be the point," Garris told him, tearing open a Band-Aid. "Wasteland feeds you. Without it, you just hurt when you try."

Fresco nodded in understanding, but spent the whole rest of the day turning it over and over in his mind until, unable and unwilling to cast away the simplicity of the idea, he collapsed into bed that night. Alone in his room in the semi-dark, Fresco decided he needed to know for himself.

He made himself comfortable, closed his eyes, and reached out with his mind to the rest of the house.

***

painandpainandpainandpainandpain-

***

Groggy and aching all over, he woke up two days later, shaking, head screaming in agony. Parker stood over him, arms crossed over her chest, eyes flat with fury.

"The next time you try something so idiotic," she informed him in no uncertain terms, "I will personally kick your ass out onto the street."

He registered the tears on her face before passing out again.

That ended Fresco's psychic experiments. It didn't stop him from wanting answers. When Parker would speak to him again, he tracked her down and asked her about it.

She toyed with her fruit cup in the bright kitchen as she considered her answer. "Some kids can use their abilities to a small degree."

"Like you," Fresco said.

"Like me. We don't know why." Clearly frustrated, she tossed her spoon to the tabletop. "There is so much we don't know." Her golden eyes lifted to his. "Most can't access what's inside without being crippled by pain. And worse, bringing the hunger back."

Fresco nodded, remembering.

"It can cause blackouts," she told him. "Kids have been known to go insane. Or run right back to the blue joy. It's not worth it. Ever."

He agreed with her and let it go.

The problem was, Fresco's power didn't want to be ignored. He found himself more and more often catching the feeling of it rising in time to shove it down, fear gripping him at the thought of going through the agony all over again. He struggled to learn to control his power, winning battles but losing the war. Being able to sense the rise of his abilities was his only defense.

Garris and Parker, meanwhile, watched him with deep concern.

Finally, one night as he lay in his bed, struggling between his body's demand for Wasteland and his power's need to be free, Fresco had an epiphany.

It's not just about feeding what's growing inside, he thought as his body shook the cold sweat from him, it's about keeping us from using it once it comes out.

His last thought before curling back into a fetal position was, Is this the test?

When Fresco was able to drag himself to the office the next day, Garris agreed.

"I've had some suspicions," he said. "There has to be a reason for Wasteland beyond the addiction and a source of fuel. And that explanation makes as much sense as any."

"Maybe that's why we can never break free of it," Fresco said. "Until we can use our abilities, Wasteland controls us."

"I see where you're going." Garris nodded. "But it's impossible. No one has won free of the blue enemy. It's not worth the risk. Look," he squeezed Fresco's shoulders between his hands, "we're really close to a cure, I can feel it. Once we develop a viable treatment to counteract the blue enemy, this will all be over and you can play around with your newfound powers all you want."

"Will we still have them?" Fresco wasn't sure why he cared. After all, the power inside him was a living reminder of the horror his life had become.

Garris seemed troubled. "I've never thought that far ahead." He laughed. "Let's do everything we can to find out, shall we?"

Fresco met Medley for the first time that same morning. Parker pulled him from the kitchen with a mysterious smile and led him, still chewing, back to Garris's door. Inside, he came face-to-face with a small, round woman with white hair and an expression full of laugh lines whose pale blue eyes looked right into the center of him.

"This is the one with the marvelous blood and grand ideas," she said in her firm, no nonsense voice.

Garris smiled. "Fresco, meet Medley, our genius chemist. Medley, Fresco."

He nodded to her as she winked at him.

"Garris tells me you think you can solve this all on your own," she said. "Even tried, stupid boy. Hmmmm?"

Fresco shrugged and grinned at her. "Well, not like you're making much progress."

She laughed at him, bobbing her head. "Give me a little time with that blood of yours and we'll see who finds the answers." She pulled up a chair, dumping the papers to the floor before seating herself on it with a huff of breath.

"Now tell me," she said.

"Tell you what?" Fresco liked her already.

"Why, everything, boy. Everything."

Fresco spent the next several hours having his brain prodded. He felt wrung out when Medley was through. It was Parker who led him away, back to the kitchen where she loaded him up with food. When she sat across from him, she was grinning.

"So? What do you think?"

"She's kooky," he said around a bite of pasta.

"She likes you, Fres," Parker said. "But better, I know her well enough to see she's excited. Were you really gone three months?" Fresco had the impression Parker wanted to ask for a while, but hesitated to bring it up.

Fresco nodded and swallowed. "Why is it important?"

"Because," she said, stealing a soft ravioli. "As far as we know, the longest one of us has been in their hands is a couple of weeks. There's something about you the Garbagemen liked. And that might be good news for us. If we can figure out why they were so interested in you."

He didn't say anything, but he shuddered as a cold thrill ran down his spine. What did they do with him for so long, and why?

That night Fresco drifted, the question still in his mind. Not realizing how close he was to doing the forbidden, as he passed into sleep, his mind reached out for an answer on its own, finding a doorway to the truth through the thoughts of another. He didn't know the mind or how he connected to it. But in a shock of absolute clarity, Fresco knew the truth about everything.

Only to be pushed back, the door locked behind him, the understanding lost, the pain taking him all over again.

His body felt dipped in liquid fire, every muscle and bone, every drop of blood searing with intensity, stilling his heart for two beats before letting it pound back to life. Fresco felt himself lift from his bed, and the memory echo from the night he broke out was so strong he cried out in silence, his throat unable to move.

Daniel!

But his brother wasn't there or his parents or even the Garbagemen. There was only the pain and the fire and the endless spiral into molten magma and death. His body spasmed over and over again, liquid hot lightening jolting from his toes to the tips of his fingers and out through every pore of his body. He was sure if he touched down he would set fire to his bed and the entire house, but his body never encountered the blankets, only hovered there, suspended by his power, as it fought for dominion against the snarling, savage hold of Wasteland.

It clawed its way through him, pulling him close and tight, refusing to let go. He wanted to die, needed to, just to have the pain end. It was like nothing he ever felt, and took him back to the sweet faced man in the Diamond City with his dagger of glass. Only this time, it wasn't just his heart but every cell making him up pulsating with agony.

He couldn't take another instant, and yet it went on and on. When he thought his heart would finally give out he was wrong and there was no blessed release, no ending.

painandpainandpainANDPAINANDPAINANDPAINAND

and

One final, enormous spasm drove his spine backward, his feet thrashing in midair, breath a superheated cloud locked in his chest. His mind splintered, fragmented, shattered into a million shining pieces, each of them its own slice of death.

It was over. His body fell to the bed. He felt nothing, numb and empty. It was ironic the last scraps of his mind to remain were the ones he hated the most.

That's all folks, Justin whispered. Have a nice death, loser.

Fresco let himself embrace his end with gratitude it was finally over, happy at last to die.

***