A Normil Day

Rick Normil

So. On the astral plane, forty stories up and standing on nothing, being bear-hugged by a guy who looked faintly like a college-age MacGyver, only more harmless.

I'm good at adapting to weird situations. But I've never had a man hang onto me like that before. As if he'd been stuck on a desert island for ten years. As if I was a lifeline. "Um," I said, "guy. I don't—" Guy-with-the-mullet shifted, as if he'd realized how awkward this was and was going to get off me. "Don't let go!" Because he didn't seem to have any problem flying, but I had no such guarantee.

"You can't fall." Apart from the hovering-in-midair business, he sounded extraordinarily normal. "Not unless you want to." He seemed to think about this. "Or unless you think you can . . . hang on a sec."

And then we were on the roof. Just like that.

He stepped away from me, and I collected my equilibrium. The fact that it was possible to teleport—that didn't surprise me. The suddenness of it, the fact that he hadn't even closed his eyes in concentration, that was more disconcerting. But the thing that was really getting to me was the vague feeling that there had been a split second in between—that I'd been able to see something there, and possibly didn't want a better look at it.

"Better?" Mullet asked.

"Lots," I said. "Thanks."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—" He waved his hands helplessly. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," he went on awkwardly, "it's just been a long time since—it's not like I—" He abandoned the explanation as a lost cause and stuck his hand out. "Armand Cole."

I took it. It felt like a hand. "Rick Normil."

"I know." He strolled over and perched on the roof railing. "I check in on this place every day. It's a nexus."

"A what?"

He got to his feet—not on the roof, but on the railing itself, and paced along it with absolutely no regard for the drop below. I wondered how long a person would have to be stuck here to learn to ignore heights that completely. Maybe he had been stuck on a desert island, sort of—except worse, because you can see people all around you and know what you're missing.

"A place where powers naturally congregate. A place that hosts more significant events than any reasonable person would expect. I made up the term 'nexus' myself, though." Armand smiled faintly. "Sounds more science-y than 'weird spot.' I used to think it was a function of population, but that can't be the only factor. I mean, we have Marina City, Rock Harbor, New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo," he ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke, "but not Mexico City or Moscow or Beijing or Lagos. And meanwhile, a teensy third-rate country like Orskavia—"

"Hang on," I said, "I think we're starting in the middle of the story. What—exactly—are you?"

Armand looked surprised. "I'm a ghost."

He looked about as non-haunty as it's possible to get. He wasn't even unusually pale. Dark blond hair, extremely blue eyes, tall but lanky and not muscular-looking, maybe somewhere in his early twenties—everything about his appearance added up to average and harmless. "As in dead," I said.

"Yeah, of course. Aren't you?" Perhaps not totally average-looking; he had drifted absently off the railing and was sitting casually in mid-air, one leg tucked up, one dangling. " I thought you'd kind of have to be in a coma at the very least to be—y'know—like this. Although if I were you, I wouldn't wor—"

"I've been possessed," I said.

"What?"

"Possessed. Some strangetech zapped me with some sort of gadget, and the next thing I know my body is walking around without me. I came up here to find Guardian. Figured he might be able to see me with his molecular perception. If 'see' is the right word." Guardian has tried to describe molecular perception to me before, but I don't think there are any actual words for it. He says that it's almost like sound, only the sounds have shape and flavor, and things get quieter and mistier when they're far away instead of decreasing in apparent size like with vision—I'm pretty sure I'm never going to really understand what he's talking about. "And I found you instead," I finished. "Can you do the poltergeist thing? Because—"