Theories are the fruit of experimental evidence
Chapter 7
Theories are the fruit of experimental evidence
Usually, Nom would have been squeamish about such a gory sight as the skinless concierge, but it was different somehow this time. When Nom was a child his father had taken him to visit his medical school. Needing to collect a few things he had left behind the day before, Nom's dad took him into the anatomy lab. The room had an appalling smell, but Nom had no idea why. The cadavers were all under thick rubber sheets.
While his father went over to his locker, Nom boredly glanced around. Across the room he saw one of his honorary uncles, Bob Arnold. Bob and Nom's father had been fast friends. He was frequently a dinner guest at the house. Bob had a tendency to be mischievous. Unfortunately for Nom, since he was still in the second grade, he was yet to discover the dark side of humor. Seeing him, uncle Bob held a gloved finger up to his lips, and gestured Nom over. Since he knew and trusted the man, Nom naturally complied. When he came over, Bob pulled the sheet back over his cadaver to spare Nom the gruesome sight. Gesturing for Nom to come closer, Bob held out a paper lunch bag.
When Nom took it, Bob whispered: "Don't open it. It's a surprise for your mother."
With a juvenile grin Nom nodded, took the bag, and crept back over to his father. Later that night, after dinner, Nom did as he had been asked. His parents were sitting in the living room watching Raptor Nightly News. When a commercial came on, Nom gave the bag to his mother and said it was a present. With a confused look she pulled out a thin, somewhat moist square piece of leather.
She looked at Nom, and then at his father in confusion and said: "Honey what's this?"
Years later looking back, with the hind sight of adulthood, Nom could read the expression on his father's face. He leaned in, and his nostrils flared with an intake of breath. The smell of the mortuary preservatives must have been a dead giveaway. The thickness of the skin with a few scattered hairs would have marked it as a piece of skin from a human back.
His father's voice was so cold it would have frozen a volcano. "Where did you get this?" He asked.
Nom squirmed, terrified by the look in his father's eye and the tone in his voice. He could only manage to raise a few scattered unintelligible sounds.
Nom's father snapped his fingers to bring back his attention. "Did you take this from the lab we went to today?"
"No... No… I didn't." Nom replied.
"Are you lying?" His father asked.
"No. Uncle Bob was there." Nom choked out.
"What does Bob have to do with you giving your mother…." Nom's father's eyes went dead. "I'll kill him." He said, somehow managing to chill his tone even further. Grabbing the bag and skin from Nom's mother.
Nom's mother looked at her husband in shock. "Honey, what's going on?"
"Don't worry. I'll take care of it." He said, shoving the skin back in the bag. "I'll tell you later what this is, but for now wash your hands thoroughly."
Nom's mother left with a look of utter confusion. Her husband's tone driving away all the questions she had, she made her way to the kitchen sink and did as she was asked.
The next day was Sunday. After church Nom and his dad went back to the anatomy lab. His father had pulled back the rubber sheets and shown him what was underneath. He had put on a lab coat and gloves, and let Nom do the same. Nom was fascinated, and yet for some reason he could never explain, after a few minutes of asking questions, he had found himself in the hall with his father splashing water from a fountain on to his face.
The last thing he remembered was his father taking a small pry bar to remove the pre opened cranium. The moment the mercury lights showed him the interior of this jack-o-lantern, his world had faded to black.
He had fainted. The same thing happened every time Nom was taken by his father to one of his hospitals. Take your child to work days always ended with Nom in the hall smelling ammonia cartridges held by a nurse, usually, the same one who had hauled him out of some exam room. The strange thing was, if he pulled out his father's anatomy books, or, later on, used the internet, he had no problem viewing pictures of even the most gruesome wounds. He was fascinated by the images of tumors, rashes, and surgeries, but every time he saw them in person, he fainted. It seemed that Nom's powers were changing him as well.
When Nom zoomed into the clerk's head, for the first time in his life he did not feel faint about seeing raw inner flesh before his eyes. Even the gore at the truck stop had been mildly nauseating, but as Nom move on to each new subject he grew desensitized. Somehow he had changed. When he looked at her, he saw nothing more disturbing than the anatomy books he had read as a child.
He zoomed in again, and her skull passed from sight. The interior of her cranium came into view. Not as it would in the image of an MRI or some other scan, this was not a ghostly image captured in still life. It was like the brain his father had shown him all those years ago. Only this one was not stiff and rubbery with nasty stinking preservatives. The blood vessels were not filled with colored jell to make them the proper color. No, these pulsed with life. It was as if her skin, hair, flesh, and skull had gone perfectly ethereal. Nothing was there supporting the contents of the cranium. Nom found that he could manipulate his view. Not only could he zoom, he could rotate and flip it as if he was looking at a three dimensional computer model.
From his memory, he pulled up the names of the various parts. Green lines appeared, pointing out those parts. They led to labels written in the same green glow that old computer monitors had used.
Nom was a bit rusty, but he was fairly sure that the cerebral cortex was the portion of her brain that he wanted to adjust. With that thought, the rest of her brain vanished, and he was left with a slowly tumbling view.
Jesus. He thought. This was a lot easier when I just wished for something and it happened. Now I have to figure out exactly what I want to affect… Wait… what's that?
An archaic green MS DOS command arrow floated next to a small blood vessel. Somehow Nom knew that this was what he wanted. With his hand somehow passing through her body as if it was not there, he reached and touched the blood vessel. He felt the pulse of life in it, and whispered.
"Give me a short term clot please." The vessel was so small. He knew if he had looked at it under normal circumstances, he would have needed a microscope to make it out. Yet, there it was, clear as day in real life. He watched a clot form and blocked a bit of that flow of life.
Nom pulled his hand back. As if he had blinked, reality and the body of the concierge had flashed back to normal. The smile that had been forming on her lips twitched and stopped about halfway. Her arms stopped their journey upwards to proffer the towels. Her left eye twitched, and she shook her head in confusion. Nom had not a clue what portion of her cerebral cortex he had cut off, but he knew that she was now his.
Consciousness is a complex machine. It relies on a constant stream of new information coming in through the bodies senses, and a constant stream of memories to compare that sensory information against for understanding. Most of this is done at a subconscious level.
The bit of it Nom denied the concierge, cost her current awareness of self. Nom had cut off her ability to summon memories for comparison. He had not given her amnesia; he had simply made it so that her brain had no sense of the past. A person with amnesia knows that there is a past, but simply cannot recall it. All this person knew was each instant as it happened.
She was now literally a blank slate of a mind, one that he could, with constant, careful coaching, command to do anything he wanted. With a few carefully selected prompts he brought her into his room and closed the door…
An hour later Nom lay on the bed, the co-ed was asleep next to him wearing not a stitch. Feeling much more relaxed, Nom stretched and rolled out of the bed. It was so nice for once to have a female do exactly what he wanted, how he wanted, and then shut up, curling up for sleep without requesting to spoon.
Prior to using her, Nom had her call the front desk and had her say that she was leaving for the day due to robust menstrual cramps. Of course, he had her tell her male boss that it was one of those girl things. Would he please just not ask her any questions? She would let him know in the morning if she would need another day.
Of course another shower was required for Nom. He would not need to worry about the co-ed for several more hours. He had removed the clot from her brain once she had fulfilled her purpose. If he had left it in there longer than an hour or so, he risked permanent injury. As it was, she had lost some of her brain power. But, given that when he undressed her, he had found Mormon underwear… well, clearly her mental faculties would not be deeply missed by the world. Nom had wished for her to have taken a rather large dosage of sleeping pills. Nothing lethal, but she would be sleeping for the rest of the day.
Prior to using her, Nom had carefully looked through her life fire. He could find no sign of any communicable diseases, or STDs. Given that one in four people in the millennial generation carry some sort of STD, Nom felt relieved that he would not have to try and use his power on any little new friends he might have acquired.
Of course the worst STD was one that could only be acquired by a person with female genitals. The last thing Nom wanted was to ever pollute the gene pool with his family's chlorinated DNA, let alone contribute to the surplus population.
The girl was religious enough to wear "magic" underwear. An act of stratospheric asinine stupidity in and of itself. Wearing specific clothes simply because an imaginary sky fairy said she should? A figment, sent an imaginary angel, who talked to a con man, who read prophecy by the light of rocks in a hat… It seemed likely that she would follow the precept against aborting an unplanned pregnancy.
He would have to do something about that, people that dumb should not be allowed to add to posterity. The world simply had too many breeders. Worst the world was full of morons, passing on their moron genes, polluting the gene pool, and destroying posterity in the process.
Letting the relaxing water of the shower flow over him, Nom made another wish. He had filled the girl with his seed, and he simply could not risk nature taking its course. The world being overpopulated, and her status as a card carrying moron was proven by her undergarments. He wished that all of her eggs would die. Her body was to reabsorb the tissue, and fill the cavity with scar tissue. Hopefully, she would simply think that she was not fertile, should she ever look into it.
Nom finished his shower and dressed. He removed the sheet from the co-ed and enjoyed the view. Really, these thoroughbred Mormon blond girls were like fine art. He soaked in the image, and put it in a prominent place in his mind, like a painting over the mantel. Seeing her shiver, he decided that it was only reasonable to cover her back up.
He picked up the clothing she had, by his instructions, draped on the lamp and chair. As with most Mormons she had been taught to dance from a young age. The distance between burlesque and dance, is only the width of a fabric. The show had been wonderful, and the instinctive muscle memories had come despite his blood clot.
Since the window was open, there was no need to worry about a fire from her blouse hanging over the extinguished lamp. It had been the most enjoyable dance. Salome herself could not have done better. Now that the show was over, though, he craved order again.
Her pants pocket held her universal room key card. The exact reason that he had summoned her in the first place. Her body had simply been a rather enjoyable appetizer.
Getting upstairs to get first-hand information on his experimental results was vital. Nom stepped out into the hallway and looked around. Four doors down he saw what he needed; a "Do Not Disturb" sign. Nom liberated the needed resource, and put it to use. He did not want the cleaning staff to find the concierge in his own room. After all, he had used his sign last night to secure the victim family's room.
Having covered all of his bases, Nom took the elevator to the sixth floor. He saw no one and entered room six-one-two. There was a distinct odor of rotting meat, urine, and feces. The shit stain had naturally lost control of its sphincters and had released the waste that Nom named it for.
The imp lay in a car carrier, clothed in its pajamas. The parents had apparently used it as a convenient portable crib. The father lay on the floor in his boxers and undershirt. He was face down and showed clear signs of gangrenous tissue. His left arm was black to the elbow—his right to the forearm. Both of his legs were black almost to the knees. Like the infant, he too had evacuated his bladder and bowels; one of the side effects of having cut his voluntary muscle functions in the spine. He showed no signs of life. Had Nom not been able to feel his life fire, he would have assumed him a corpse. The wife was slumped against the bathroom door, a look of agony on her face. It was an unpleasant smell and sight.
Nom had never figured out his aversion to viscera and gore. Naturally, it partially stemmed from the trauma of his father taking him to the anatomy lab, but there had to be something more to it. He had gone hunting on plenty of occasions and had never been squeamish about gutting a kill. High school and college biology labs had been a problem, but he was convinced that his revulsion was caused by them using the same preservatives the morticians used. Smell can be a powerful trigger of memory.
Nom found one of the best ways to work his way through any given situation or scenario was to talk himself through it. After all, a wise man seeks wise council. Naturally, his own advice was the best. He frequently held court in his head, or, on the occasions he was alone, out loud. It wasn't that the voices were independent entities that he was not in control of. On the contrary, he found that by playing the role of each he was better able to reach a conclusion.
Occasionally without being summoned, one of his characters would pop their head up, and he would assume their role without even thinking of it.
The master key taken from the concierge worked perfectly. Nom walked into the room and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of death. As his panic rose, and his control began to wane the voice of reason and logic, whom Nom referred to as George made an appearance.
"You know that there is no need to cringe from the smell" George said.
"What the hell are you talking about? There is at least one dead body in there." Nom said.
"A dead body we created. We chose to do this, we said we needed to experiment with these 'powers' of ours." George said.
"I can't breathe in here." Nom said. "The smell!"
"The smell can't hurt you, what year do you think this is? 1666? Are we in London? Vile vapors do not induce infection, Nom, and you know it!" The voice called George said.
"But… The smell!" Nom said gasping for breath.
"Snap out of it! You know very well that none of this is communicable, unless you exchange bodily fluids with one of them." George hissed.
"It's disgusting! It's one thing to know about this; it's another to see it!" Nom said choking down bile.
"You have to see it. We had to know if what you felt from downstairs was real. This is science. You made a prediction, proposed a falsifiable experiment, carried it out, and now you are evaluating your findings." George replied.
"But those are people..."
George interrupted. "No! They are not people."
"What?" Nom asked.
"They are sub human, just like the 'appetizer' in your room downstairs. These chose not be human when they bred like rats. They chose to inflict that shit stain of screams on a nice, quiet restaurant. They chose to increase the surplus human population, thus further destroying the Earth, rather than helping it. Your appetizer polluted the world with her primitive cult, name me one thing that has done more damage to humanity than religion! So you played with her before you dispatch her later, what difference does it make? You are taking out the trash. You are helping the Earth by eliminating them." George said.
Nom started to breath easer.
"Now you are regaining control. Good. Breathe. This has nothing to do with human bodies. It is about eliminating sub human filth. They are no more human than a deer. Finish it." George said. And as rapidly as he had appeared in Nom's mind, he was gone.
Nom hunched over and, grabbing his shoulders, he popped his spine to ease his tension. Of course George was right. From the look in the wife's eyes she seemed to be thinking that she was observing a schizophrenic or multiple personalities case, Nom didn't really care. George, like all the others, was a valuable coping mechanism.
Nom looked down at his hostess. "Excuse me for entering uninvited, but given your current condition, it did not seem likely that you would be able to respond if I knocked." Nom said as he brought himself erect. His back gave a final pop, and he adjusted his neck. "Would you mind if I brought over the desk chair?" He said gesturing. "No? Well, thank you. We do need to have a talk after all." Nom crossed the room and fetched the ladder-back chair from in front of the desk. He brought it over to be in front of the wife.
"I'm a little parched. Usually, I would ask my host for something, but given…" he gestured at her unmoving body. "Thanks, I knew you would understand." Nom stepped over her into the bathroom. Fortunately, there still was an unused cup securely wrapped in its cellophane. He unwrapped and filled it at the tap. Returning to the chair, he sat. In the back of his mind a final note from George surfaced: forcing himself to drink would settle his germ obsessed nerves.
"So, since our conversation is going to be a bit one-sided, I'll just introduce myself. My name is Nom. Up until yesterday, I was a run of the mill grad student paying his way through life as a truck driver. As I'm sure you can tell I'm a bit on the neurotic side. I like to have everything in my life just so. For as long as I can remember some asshole would cause a mess, and I would always be the one left holding the check. Yesterday, I found that if I wished one of those assholes to die, they not only died, but died in the way I wanted them too."
Nom pacified his nerves and forced himself to take a drink. As always George was right, the calm was almost instantaneous.
He continued. "Now, I like to think of myself as a meticulous observer, cataloging everything I see, the problem is that I do not understand this new gift I have. That is where you three came in." He said gesturing to the other two bodies in the room. "Personally I hate other people. They get in the way, they use resources that I could use, and they refuse to play by the rules I make for them. Take last night. Remember the restaurant? I see that you do." He chuckled.
"Yes, I was the one who sent the note and the wine. Why would you inflict a screaming feral rat of an infant on other people?" He tisked at her. "There are babysitters, relatives, day care, or just staying the fuck home!" He leaned in. "Did you know that in most states you can legally abandon a baby at a: fire house, police station, church, or hospital of your choice? That little crap machine surely would have been better off if you had. It would be alive at least."
Her eyes twitched in denial.
"Oh you didn't know? The smell didn't give it away? Well I guess hope does spring eternal. Anyway. I chose you three since you represent something I loathe: stupid Americans, breeding unnecessarily, and inflicting your vile spawn on other people, people who would rather just have a quiet existence. Think of the money and natural resources you were willing to destroy simply because you could not resist the siren call of your endocrine system." Nom said.
He stood, and looked down at her. "From the look of your husband, he has at most a few hours to live. His body is dying from the toxins released by the necrosis in his limbs." He stepped over her to refilled his glass. He took another drink. "You, my dear, are dying from peritonitis. I wished for your guts to perforate. All the flora that used to help you digest your food are now digesting you." He put his cup down and went back to the door. "It will take a few days I'm afraid. In all likelihood you will die of thirst first, but since neither one is very comfortable I'm satisfied. It seems like just a bit of the justice you deserve given what you did, but it will have to do."
He turned to face her a final time. "You and your husband are evil. Your kind breed like rabbits, destroy the planet, and have no respect for the future of humanity. The hours you wasted making the germ factory could have been spent seeking a cure for cancer or making breakthroughs in physics. Did you even check to see if the population would benefit from your breeding? Do you possess some unusual positive genetic trait that simply must be passed on? Is the population at risk of collapsing? No? Well. You did something so basic that brainless plants can do it. Pity. Humanity is well rid of you three, and you are paying for your sins."
"I guess that the sin you are paying for most of all: is rising above your status. You did not earn the right to breed. That is reserved to the fittest, not to everyday morons!"
"Now don't worry. I've paid up the room through the rest of the week, so you can die in peace. No one will come and bother you with boring efforts to save you. Still, I'm not totally without pity. You must be bored. Given how you are such a moron, with your parenting, and, ahem, breeding choices; let's put on something worthy of your intelligence."
Nom grabbed the TV remote from the table and turned it on. Scrolling through the guide, he found what he was looking for. Three clicks and The Teletubbies began.
"I hope that you can understand all the big words they use. I recall reading once that having a child actually lowers a woman's intelligence; a side effect of all the hormones during pregnancy. The study seemed to think it made it easier for her to relate to her child. Unfortunately, I have some things to take care of, so I can't explain those big words to you. I believe the character called 'La La' is there to do that anyway." Nom set the remote down and left.
Nom stepped into the hall. He had learned a great deal about his abilities and about what he wanted to do with them. Despite the look of rage in the eyes of the mother, Nom felt fantastic. He not only had delivered justice; he had ensured that the target of his wrath knew exactly why they were being punished. He made his way to the elevator, leaving the do not disturb sign on the door of room six-one-two.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone