Fuse

It was the guinea pig that gave it away.

When Emil was twelve the family still lived in the dingy apartment down the street from the canning factory. They lived with his grandmother, who seemed to have stayed in her rocking chair for so long that she had fused into it. She did little but knit, the whole day through, her eyes glued to old recordings of operas and ballet performances that played about on their little TV set. 

(The camerawork was so shaky that he decided they must have been recorded illicitly. He imagined his grandmother as a young woman, sneaking a bulky camera into some dimly-lit theater back in the Old Country, and felt oddly proud.)

His grandmother was also the owner of a particularly foul-tempered cat. 

Her name was Babydoll—but she was clearly ancient. Maybe even older than him. Not that it stopped her from acting like she ruled the apartment, or regularly performing amazing feats of acrobatics. She would jump up on the kitchen counter and snatch the fish right out of Emil’s mother’s hands, and startle his father by leaping onto his chest when he dozed off on the couch. Almost as if she knew that there was nothing they could do about it. 

On top of that, they were always yelling at him to feed her. When her yowling failed to awaken him, Babydoll would resort to snapping at his heels until he scrambled off the bed and stumbled into the kitchen, slinking smugly behind him. 

All of this, Emil was used to. 

The real problem started when, for his twelfth birthday, he asked his parents for a guinea pig. 

If it weren’t for his friends, he might not have asked. But at that age, it seemed like everyone at school had something. Hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, even some lizards. And he’d heard of one girl in the seventh grade who kept a pet tarantula. 

The first time he brought it up, his mother only sighed. 

“We have Babydoll,” she would say. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”

“But she’s not mine,” he would reply. “I promise I’ll take care of it. You and dad won’t have to do anything.” 

And little by little, his insistence wore away at them, until finally, they relented. 

He loved that guinea pig. The problem was, Babydoll didn’t seem to have the same opinion. Emil would catch her eyeing Mr. Incredible’s cage in her spare time, with an evil glint in those slit-pupils. And he had to be very careful when he took him out. 

One day, he came back from school to find that someone had let Mr. Incredible out of his cage. Babydoll was chasing him around the house. 

In a panic, he ran behind them. Instead of crouching down and getting out some food to lure her over, he dived after Babydoll and tackled her.

At that moment, Emil remembered thinking no, don’t. But also, underneath that—why can’t you get along?

The moment he touched her, Babydoll’s fur puffed up. She growled, low in her throat.

Then she slipped out and headed straight for Mr. Incredible. 

But she didn’t eat him. Didn’t even claw at him. All she did was reach out at Mr. Incredible with one paw, while Emil looked on in terror, and lightly bat him on the side.

And then—something happened.

As Emil watched, Babydoll’s paw seemed to go into Mr. Incredible. Only there wasn’t any blood, and the guinea pig didn’t show any sign of distress. Instead, he remained perfectly stoic as the two shades of fur—brown and white—started to blend together. As their bodies started to blend together. Mr. Incredible’s body seemed to travel further up the cat’s front leg, until his head stuck out from her torso, right by her neck. 

It looked almost like they had two heads. If it wasn’t so frightening, it might have seemed funny. 

But it wasn’t funny. Emil blinked, deliberately. It was still there. He felt frozen to the spot. His heart went thud-thud-thud, and a roaring noise was starting to build in his ears. 

By that time, Emergences had been public knowledge for more than two decades: they already had research and laws and commissions for this sort of thing. And of course, there were the capes, who took it upon themselves to use their powers in service of the law. Just as those who sought to use them for crime.

At this age, he’d already heard of the SELC. It stood for Specialized Emergences Licensing Commission. But it was in charge of much more than licensing. Why else would he have seen classmates being picked up from school in those sleek grey vans, like when Evan Tremblay accidentally set a fire, or when Jenny Chiang did a little too well on the monkey bars?

Most of them came back. Some didn’t. Those were usually the ones with the most volatile powers, or the ones with the greatest potential for danger.

They’d had a presentation in school the other week, where a smiling woman in a lab coat came to explain the tests they would do. The first was for the nature of the ability, the second for their psychology, and the third for their level of control. If those combined showed a little too much risk, then the Commission would have to monitor them. 

Emil didn’t know about the latter two, not for himself. He had always been a little anxious, which could be good because it meant he was careful. But it could also be bad, because it meant he wasn’t confident enough to be stable. 

Then, a horrible thought came into his head. Animals were bad enough. If this would work on people… 

He squeezed his eyes shut.

And so, even though Emil wanted with every fiber of his being to call for his parents, to run away—he didn’t. He forced himself to breathe and counted to five. 

One. Crawling on his elbows, he inched closer to the… thing. Two. He laid a hand on its fur. Three. He stared at it. Four pairs of eyes stared back. Four. He thought, as hard as he could, go back. 

Five.  

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them—

They were back to normal. As if it had never happened.

Emil laid back on the floor and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. Then he stood, picked up Mr. Incredible, and set him back in his cage. 

Babydoll’s green eyes seemed to follow him, accusingly.

***

Mr. Incredible was never the same after that. He seemed listless and despondent, and would often stare for long hours at one corner of his cage. Babydoll, too, would seem confused, sometimes freezing up in the middle of grooming herself. She would only unfreeze when someone patted her. 

About a month after the Incident, she died quietly. Mr. Incredible followed close behind.

Emil buried them in a bare patch of land behind their apartment, and hoped the landlord didn’t notice. I’m sorry, he thought, looking down at the small piles of dirt. 

He made up his mind to never do that again. In the next few years, Emil was careful not to pet any dogs, or touch anyone else with his hands. Even though that didn’t always seem to happen, he couldn’t be too careful. He bought boxes of latex gloves with his allowance, and later with the money that he made working at the convenience store on the corner of the street, replacing them every time they wore away.

***

One summer afternoon, Emil was walking back from his shift at the store when he spotted an ice cream truck parked by the side of the street. He had just slipped off his gloves after buying a new box: the old ones had holes in them, and it was sweltering.

The driver crouched on the roof, fixing something. Emil was passing by the truck when he saw the man bend down to retrieve a tool from the front seat. Facing the truck’s interior, he didn’t seem to notice just how far he was hanging into the road—down which a car was fast approaching. 

Emil called out a warning, but it seemed like the man had earbuds in. 

He froze. The car was a few seconds away. 

Then, cursing the absurd situation, he scrambled up the truck from the other side, using the open windows as footholds. With the car so close, Emil had no time to pull himself up fully onto the roof. Instead, he reached up blindly for the man, thinking, desperately, please get over. 

His hand wrapped around the man’s ankle, pulling him back onto the roof just as the car drove by. 

Of course, in this heat, the man had to be wearing shorts and sandals.

Emil held his breath. 

Then, his own flesh began to liquefy and fuse into the man’s leg. The sensation wasn’t painful. But it was like vertigo, like your body being flung about on a rollercoaster—visceral, nauseating. He had to stop this before someone saw. 

But before that… he remembered the way Babydoll and Mr. Incredible had seemed so calm during the Incident. And how, afterwards, they had changed.

It was a desperate gambit. Forget, he tried to think at the man. Then, separate. 

They separated. Emil fell backwards from the truck, landing hard on the sidewalk. He tried to resume his walk, hoping the driver wouldn’t question what had just happened. 

When he turned around discreetly, the man seemed to be looking for something, confused but not horrified.

So those affected could forget. That was good, Emil told himself.

If only he could, too.

***

Eventually, Emil graduated high school and applied to college. He was hoping to become a mycologist, if only because pre-med would be too difficult while still keeping his Emergence hidden. And fungi were interesting. He liked the way that they seemed almost like flesh, but weren’t. Almost animal, but not. He could handle them without worrying.

Not that he expected to hide forever. 

Deep inside, he knew that discovery was all but inevitable. All it would take was the slightest slip-up, and he would be carted off by the Commission. 

(He had never even considered becoming a licensed cape, because—even if they let him—what could he do with an Emergence like his?)

And so he trudged on through his classes with a sense of vague hopelessness.

***

Someone had brought him to this party, so now he was standing awkwardly in the corner, hands cradled around the paper cup like a prayer. It was easy, he thought, to use it to hide his face. All he needed to do was bring it up to mouth level and pretend to be drinking. 

This would have been easier if it wasn’t filled. He considered the liquid inside. 

And then, well. 

The world shifted, blurred around the edges. The strobe lights made everything pass in flashes, in time with the beat of the music, as if time itself was stuttering into slow-motion. Emil moved along the edges of the room, trying to walk in a straight line. Imagined the tightrope, the sun in his eyes, a high wind whistling. 

There was… a hallway. Sealed and claustrophobic, like the inside of a drum, everything dark and muffled and indistinct. Eventually, he came to a room where the door was slightly ajar, as if someone had forgotten to close it.

Through the crack in a door, he saw someone with their head tilted up. Their throat moved vainly, as if seeking benediction from the bottom of a bottle. There was just enough light to illuminate the faint sheen high on their cheek. Sweat, he thought, or tears.

As if looking out from a dream, Emil raised his arm and pushed lightly at the door.

It opened. The occupants didn’t seem to notice him. They were standing in a circle, drinking methodically—almost violently—from a succession of bottles that had been placed before them. At the furthest end of the room stood a few who weren’t, but merely watched the proceedings, sometimes going to replenish the supply of bottles. 

One of the drinkers swayed on his feet. Somehow, Emil knew that if he fell over, the others would simply go on with the ritual until the cold light of day came to scour it all clean. But by then, it would be too late. It was always too late.

Emil took off his glove. His body felt like a bag of rocks, and oddly weightless, all at once. 

He reached out and tapped the nearest guy on the arm.

Fuse, he thought. All of you. Then, sleep. 

In one hour, you’ll wake up. Before you wake up, you’ll forget all of this, and separate.

The guy stiffened and surged towards the one right next to him. Their flesh started to combine. Then the next, and the next, and the next. Until they were all one mass of flesh, joined together, heaving and then abruptly slumping over in a ring around the room. With his mind, Emil reached into their veins, feeling for the alcohol in their blood. 

It would be enough. The amalgam could withstand it. 

Emil sighed. Then, he turned and ran.

He slipped out of the front door just as the screaming started.

***

Several blocks away, Emil shivered in the night air. When he exhaled his breath came out in clouds. 

Under the streetlights, he was all alone.

He glanced back. In the distance, the sirens were growing louder. And if those were coming they would have called the SELC, too, because these things—things that would have been called impossible, before—just didn’t happen without an Emergent.

When he turned back again, there was a man standing under the nearest streetlight. 

He wore a heavy coat and scarf that covered most of his face, but left the eyes exposed. It was hard to make out their color. His hair was limp and stringy, like waterlogged straw.

Emil swallowed. 

“Did the Commission send you?”

The man shook his head. “I sent myself. You put on quite the show, back there.”

Emil couldn’t help himself. A dry, hacking laugh forced itself up the back of his throat.

“I knew someone else, once. A friend, with a similar problem.”

The man’s voice rasped, like skin on bone. “I couldn’t help him. But I can tell you, now,” he continued, “that there is a way to get rid of your Emergence.”

Emil stared at him. For a moment, hope swelled in his chest. Had he ever really helped anyone, even a little, without it backfiring?

But then he thought of the greenish cast to the pledges’ faces; the tremble in their hands as they lifted the bottles.

“I think I’ll take my chances,” he heard himself say.

The man pressed a card into Emil’s hand. “For your consideration. In case you change your mind.” Then, he turned and walked down the street.

Emil tucked the card into his pocket. He watched the silhouette until it vanished, and waited for the Commission to catch up to him.