Karen Heuler - The Completely Rechargeable Man.pdf - Karen Heuler - widez2

He was introduced as Johnny Volts, and most guests assumed he was a

charlatan—the hostess, after all, was immensely gullible. But some of the

guests had seen him before, and they said he was good, lots of fun, very

"current"—a joke that got more mileage than it should have.

"Do you need any kind of extension cord?" the hostess, Liz Pooley, asked. She

wore a skintight suit of emerald lame, and had sprayed a lightning bolt

pattern in her hair, in his honor.

Johnny Volts sighed and then smiled. They all expected him to be something

like a children's magician—all patter and tricks. "No extension cord," he

said. "Where can I stand?" He caught his hostess's frown. "I need an area to

work in—and appliances, not plugged in. I'm the plug. No microwaves. A

blender, a radio, a light bulb. Christmas lights?"

The guests were charmed at first and then, inevitably, they were bored. Even

if it wasn't a trick, it was pretty limited. He could power a light, but not a

microwave. He could charge your cell phone but not your car. He was an early

adopter of some sort, that was all; they would wait for the jazzed-up version.

Johnny Volts had a pacemaker with a rechargeable battery, and he had a friend

who was a mad scientist. This friend had added a universal bus to his battery

port, and hence Johnny Volts had a cable and a convertible socket. He could

plug things in; he could be plugged in. This was a parlor trick as far as the

public was concerned—and a strange, unsettling, but sill somewhat interesting

way of earning a living as far as Johnny Volts was concerned. He knew—he

understood—that his pacemaker powered his heart, and his heart recharged the

pacemaker in a lovely series of perpetual interactions. He had no issue with

it.

In Liz Pooley's party, as Johnny Volts lit a lamp, turned on a clock radio,

and charged an iPod, he was watched by a frowning man in a checked shirt whose

companion seemed quite happy with Johnny.

"Why he's worth his weight in gold," she said. "Imagine never having to pay an

electric bill."

"Small appliances," the man grunted.

"Well now it's small appliances, Bob, but he's just the first. Wait till he

can really get going, he'll have his own rocket pack. Remember rocket packs,

Bob? The Segway of long-lost memory." She put her hand on Bob's arm and rolled

her eyes. "I was but a mere child of course, when I heard about those rocket

packs. Shooting us up in the air. A new meaning to the term Jet Set, hey? Or

is that phrase too old? I bet it's too old. What are we called now, Bob?" She

lifted her drink, saluted him, and winked.

"We're called only when they've run out of everyone else, Cheree." Bob was

idly thinking about what would bring a man to this: plugging in small

irrelevant things into his own violated flesh. "Irrelevant," he said finally.

"They call us irrelevant."

Cheree frowned. "You're turning into an old man, Bob. You've lost your spark."

She gave him a small motherly peck on the cheek and walked forward,

powerfully, her lemon martini firm in her hand, straight to Johnny Volts, who

was looking around, waiting to be paid. "You looking for a drink?" she asked.

"I could get you one."

"Oh—well, all right," he said, surprised.

"You wait right here," she said. "I want to know all about you, electric man."

And she turned until she found a server and came back with a dark liquid in a

tumbler. "Now tell me—how does it feel? I mean you're generating electricity,

aren't you?"

"Yes. Not much. After next week it should be more. I'm having an upgrade."

"Lovely. How does it feel? Like little bugs up and down your spine?" She had a

heady grin, a frank way of working. Johnny liked it.

"It's a beautiful kind of pressure," he said. "It feels like I could fill the

room with it, lift everything up, kind of explode—only I hold on to the

explosion." His eyes got internal.

"Do you like it?"

He was open-mouthed with surprise. "Yes. Of course. It's wonderful."

She tilted her head a little, studying his face, and he found it embarrassing

at first, and then he got used to it. He looked back at her, not lowering his

eyes or glancing away. She was older than he was, but she had a bright

engaging air about her, as if she made a point of not remembering anything

bad.

"Here you go," the hostess said, her arm held out full length with a check at

the end of it like a flattened appendage.

Johnny took it and turned to leave. "Hey!" Cheree said, grabbing at his arm a

little. "That's rude. Not even a fond farewell?"

"They usually want me to leave right away," he said in explanation. "Before I

get boring."

"Boring," she said companionably as they headed together for the door. "That

bunch? They think other people are boring?"

He noted that she was walking along with him as if she belonged there. "So

where do you see yourself in five years?" she asked. "That's a test question.

So many people can't think ahead."

"Do you think ahead?"

"Not me. I'm spontaneous. Then again, I'm not at all electric, so I don't have

to worry about running out of juice."

"I don't run out," he said. "I recharge. And I'm getting an upgrade to

photovoltaic cells next week. I have to decide where to implant them; do you

mind if I run it past you?" He rubbed his hand over his head as they took the

elevator down. "The obvious thing is to replace my hair—it's a bit of a jolt,

though. I can lose it all and get a kind of mirror thing on top—a shiny bald

pate, all right. Or fiber optic hair. But it will stick out. Like one of those

weird lamps with all the wires with lights at the end? What do you think?"

"Fiber optic hair,' she said without hesitation. "Ahead of the times.

Fashion-forward. I bet there'll be a run on the hardware store."

He stopped—they were on the street—and frowned at her. "Your name?"

"Cheree."

"Cheree, you're glib."

"I am glib, Johnny," she said in a soft voice. "It's because my head doesn't

stop. You know the brain is all impulses, don't you? Bang and pop all over the

place. Well, mine is on superdrive, I have to keep talking or I'll crack from

all the thinking. The constant chatter… I can only dream of stillness."

He shook his head in sympathy. "That sounds like static." He stopped and

reached out for her hand. "Maybe you produce energy all your own?" She held

her hand out, and Johnny hesitated, then touched the tips of their fingers

together. He closed his eyes, briefly. There was a warmth, a moistness, a

lovely frisson. He took a deep breath. He felt so tired after those parties,

but now a delicious delicate rejuvenation spread through him. The back of his

neck prickled; the hairs on his arms—even his eyebrows—hairs everywhere rose,

he could feel it in his follicles. It rose up in him until suddenly Cheree was

thrown backward slightly.

"What was that?" she said tensely.

He nodded. "Sorry. Volts. A little discharge. It won't hurt you."

"Still," she said uneasily. "Can't say I know what to make of it."

They were at a crossroads, specifically Houston and Lafayette. "Where do you

live?" he asked.

"East Seventh."

"I'm uptown." They stood for a moment in silence. "Will you come with me?" he

asked finally.

Her face broke into a smile, like a charge of sunshine.

They were utterly charming together, they were full of sparks. Toasters popped

up when they visited their friends—though did people really still have

toasters? Wasn't that, instead, the sound of CD players going through their

disks, shuffling them? Wasn't it the barely audible purr of the fan of a car

as they passed it, sitting up and noticing as if it were a dog? They were

attractive, after all; they attracted.

"If we moved in together," Johnny said after they'd known each other for a

month, "we'd have half the bills. We could live on very little, we could live

on what I make at the parties. You wouldn't have to work as a waitress. In

fact, we could be free."

"And give up my dreams of rocket science?" she asked, her eyebrows arched.

"I thought you were a waitress."

"That's just till I sell my first rocket." Nevertheless, she decided to move

in, and it was working out fine, except for the strange way that objects

behaved around them.

Small electrics followed them like dogs sometimes—they could turn down the

block and hear a clanking or a scraping behind them. Eager little cell phones,

staticky earphones, clicking electronic notepads gathered in piles on their

doorstep.

"We have to figure out a budget," Cheree said after she moved in. "Until I

sell that rocket. Rent, not much we can do. We should get bikes, that will

save on transportation. But, you know, we're still paying for electricity, and

it's pretty high, too. What do we really use it for?"

Together, they went through their apartment, noting: refrigerator, lamps,

clock, radio, stereo, TV, microwave, coffee maker, hair dryer, iron, laptop

computer.

"Well," Johnny said. "All quite useful in their own way, but we can make

coffee without electricity. And I already recharge the computer myself."

She considered it all. "You can recharge most of it, really, if we get the

right kind of thing. If we look at everything that way—I'm sure there are

rechargeable lamps, for instance—why are we paying electric bills? We could

save a lot of money by doing it ourselves."

They canceled their energy provider, a savings right there of $70 a month.

They would plug a different item into Johnny at night, so they would never run

out. It was a brilliant solution.

That gave him even more motivation for the photovoltaic upgrade. When he went

to his mad scientist friend, she went with him, and they mentioned the strange

way they seemed to be accumulating electrical appliances. The mad scientist

was sitting across from them, taking down Johnny's recap of the past few

months, when the scientist felt his skin begin to tingle. He shook himself

briefly, as if buzzed by a fly. He was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon,

a Mexican genius who did illegal cable and satellite hookups to make some

money, and was always looking over his shoulder. Johnny Volts was his ticket

to fame and fortune; once the process was perfect, he would offer it to a

medical or electronics company and bring millions down to his hometown of

Tijuana, where he would go to retire.

The scientist ran a voltmeter over Cheree and whistled. "This is lovely," he

said. "Exciting, even." He grinned at Johnny. "She's got a field. You see, you

two match. You kind of amplify each other—understand?" He looked at them

happily, waiting for them to catch up with his thinking. "You match."

It took a moment. "You're saying we're related? Like siblings?"

"Oh—no, no, I mean your energy matches. It doesn't mean anything really, other

than that you're sensitive to each other's waves. You two have sympathetic

electricity—I'm making the term up—so you use less energy when you're together

than you do when you're apart, because you're actually attracting each other's

charge. The byproduct is, you attract things that charge. Get it?"

"Oh, honey, yes," Cheree said. "I get it." It was like their little electric

hearts went thudder-thump when they came near each other. Cheree was aware of

it as a little sizzle in her brain.

They noticed a few things: He was a thoughtless hummer, and when he hummed he

gave her a headache. She was an adventurer, wanting to go out and about, here

there and everywhere, while he liked to think and write and test how strong

his recharging was.

It happened gradually, the feeling that they were being watched, were being

followed. She had coffee and a man who looked familiar sat opposite her in the

café. He went to a party and saw the same man in a different suit watching him

carefully. His apartment door was dusted with a fine powder one morning; the

following week it was on a window.

When they went out in the morning, there was always a bunch of people passing

their front door. Jauntily, as if just interrupted, they were speeding away,

towards, around, moving with a great deal more purpose than on any other

block. "Have you noticed it?" Cheree asked, and Johnny nodded. "I asked the

landlord, and he said there's been some kind of gas leak, they're checking the

lines a lot more. Even went into the basement, he said, all up and down the

block."

"A gas leak?' she said, sniffing. "I don't smell anything."

"Well, that's good then."

But then Johnny disappeared. Went out to a party and didn't come back, and

when she called the number listed in his daybook, she was told he hadn't shown

up.

Cheree buzzed in her head when she was near Johnny; she could feel the tingle

coming on when she turned the corner, half a block away, so it wasn't

surprising that she felt she could find him. She said to herself: these are

the things I know: He has a charge, and I can sense it. He has a head of fiber

optic hair. And I am his magnet.

She took her bike and rode slowly, up and down streets, starting with the top

of the island. Her head refused to buzz, block after block, in traffic and

out, but then, after three hours—just as she rounded the corner near the docks

on the west side—she heard a tang, she felt a nibble at her brain. It was him.

She biked forward, back, left and right, testing out the buzzing, following it

to the door of a small garage dealing in vintage cars.

She parked her bike and chained it. She noticed an electric toothbrush rolling

on the sidewalk.

She walked up to a man in a very neat jumpsuit. She didn't know anything about

vintage cars. "I have to get a present for my dear old dad," she said. "He

loves cars. I thought maybe we could all—he had two families, so there's

plenty of children—get together and buy him something smashing." She grinned.

He shrugged. "You can take a look at what we've got, but my gut says you're

out of your league."

She smiled at him steadily, looking around, her eyes skipping to the doorway

to an office or a back room. She could feel Johnny's electric kick. She walked

around the cars slowly until his charge was at its strongest. She whipped

around "I know you have him," she said, and drew in her breath, kicking a

chair over to trip him as he lunged forward. She bolted for the door, which

was unlocked, and burst in.

There was Johnny, in the corner of the room. They had him wired up to machines

that beeped and spit, they had his arm strapped to a chair.

"I'm all right," Johnny said when he saw her. She stopped, uncertainly, in the

middle of the room.

"What's going on?"

The man in the garage was behind her, and two men came at her from the side.

They were all dressed in white jumpsuits, with ties showing through their

zippered fronts. "We're from the collection agency," one man said. "For

unlawful theft of electricity."

"We don't need to pay for electricity," she said. "We only use our own."

Karen Heuler - The Completely Rechargeable Man.pdf

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