Dancer

Sybil wiped the steam off the mirror and leaned in close, the vanity lights on either side leaving no shadows on her face.
She saw no wrinkles. Not even any lines. Her hair had started to come in dark at the roots, so she’d have to go to the salon again, but that was okay. They weren’t coming in gray. Not any longer.
She dried her hair, dried her body (perky, with no sags anywhere), slipped into the yellow sun dress from her overnight, went out to the side of the bed and looked at the empty, mindless husk lying there.
He’d been an okay guy, really; a salesman at the top of his game, in Tahoe for a trade show, having a drink in the hotel bar where Sybil lurked every time she came through town. The Bond-wanna-be’s Omega probably would have attracted her interest, even if the tingling in her nose hadn’t told her that Ozzy Riordan hadn’t been playing quite fair.
Ozzy had an edge; the sort of edge that people started to get when the four other earths appeared, five months back.
Edges interested Sybil; fascinated her, even before the sky changed. Some people seemed to have them, some people just… didn’t.
She didn’t used to have one. The closest she’d had was good body, which had allowed her to get out of southern Illinois, on the back seat of a Harley. That had gotten her to Vegas, where Beau had taken a shiv in the gut and left her stranded.
Still, Vegas had been better than Taylorville, especially after she’d learned to deal blackjack. She worked in a couple of casinos, each one a little better than the last, and learned some important lessons on the way.
Lesson Number One was the biggie: People with edges take what they want.
She’d seen it. Card counters came in and took the house, and the smart ones left quickly by the front door. The not-so-smart ones left by the back alley. The guys who hired the talent for the stage shows took what they wanted from the girls. The house took everything from housewives and working stiffs and grandparents who couldn't say “no” to the slots.
When Sybil tried to take her fair share, by slipping in a few extra “tips” from the house winnings, she’d been reminded about edges. The black bruises healed, eventually, but the blackball kept her out of every casino.
Waitress work had sucked, hard. Pole-dancing had kept her off the streets. She’d dropped the name, Sarah Kozlowski, in the first club, and became Sybil Dancer. A year later, she had some decent regulars who always let her take everything in their wallets.
She never got ahead, though. She'd get a couple grand saved up, and Paulie appeared with some top-grade blow. When the money was gone, Paulie stuck around for an extra day or so and took out a few grams in trade, and then vanished.
Paulie never touched his own product. That was Paulie’s edge.
Three years ago, when she turned 35, the club let her go. The rest all said the same thing. The customers wanted younger girls. Cuter girls. Fresher girls, off the farms in southern Illinois and central Kansas and anywhere in Iowa.
You’re used up, honey. You’ve lost your edge. Yeah. Never had one.
Back to slinging hash. Not nearly as much money, not nearly as much blow. She thought about it all the time, thought about the sweet rush and the end to pain and the extra money to make on the streets.
No edge, and that meant losing everything, because she couldn’t take what she needed. She slowly felt the hunger grow, increasingly heard the streetlights and truck stops saying her name. The call got that much louder the first time she pulled a gray hair.
Sybil fought back by taking a job offer from Marty, an okay sap and a former regular who owned a diner three blocks off the Strip.
Then the sky changed, and hadn’t that been the weirdest thing? The TV started to show grainy video from the earth where World War II was starting. She’d seen pictures of the mushroom cloud over that world’s Dresden when the U.S. nuclear retaliation hit. She’d heard the arguments about “justifiable retaliation” and “deterrent effects” and it hadn’t meant a damn thing.
Her nose, septum scarred from years of blow, had started to twitch and tingle, like something from an old TV sitcom.
She didn’t understand it, the first time, or even the second or third. People would come in to the diner, usually alone, on their way from somewhere to someplace else. They'd sit in the back and say nothing to anyone despite Marty’s gregarious best efforts. They ordered their meals and then moved on.
There was something about them; something that made her nose twitch.
The fourth one was a trucker with a scraggly beard and an old leather jacket and eyes wide like a fevered cat. He sat down and ate a horse and said he’d just gotten off his third straight cross-country run. He wanted to blow off some steam.
Sybil’s nose was twitching like crazy, and he wasn’t that bad looking, and she hadn’t had any for awhile, so she let him pick her up.
She could tell that upset Marty, but hey, Marty was a sap.
There was no pretense of romance. They went to the motel and she didn’t even mind when Leroy grabbed a handfull before he got the door shut all the way. After that, it was all fumbling and pawing and tasting, and her nose felt like something on a claymation reindeer. At his moment of climax she thought her head was gonna explode.
It was better than blow had ever been.
When she woke up, well past midnight, the tingle had moved to her entire body and she felt better than she had in years. She used the bathroom, and then didn’t feel like sleeping, so she tried to wake up Leroy for a second round.
He wouldn’t wake up. He wouldn’t move. He was nothing but a lump of flesh, quivering on the stained sheets.
The paramedics couldn’t get any response, either, and the docs at the hospital called it a “persistent vegetative state." They recommended she seek psychiatric counseling to help "deal with the trauma." They didn’t find anything in his blood except traces of THC , but the doctors said there had to have been something.
After all, the cops reported Leroy had busted just about every DOT regulation by running three loads straight, with no breaks, and had apparently been awake for more than a week. Solid.
Sybil didn’t know what to think, but she felt great; better than she’d felt in years. She pulled several double-shifts at the diner, and hadn’t that put Marty in a better mood?
She didn’t sleep. She didn’t feel tired. Not for nearly a month. Then it had started to creep back up on her, but by then Sybil had started to think that maybe, maybe, she’d found her edge.
The next guy was a pudgy, neck-bearded geek in a shiny new Range Rover, on his way to San Jose. Sybil’s nose twitched hard, and the poor guy looked like he’d been smacked in the head when he finally realized what she was offering. He took her to one of the casinos on the strip, instead of a motel, wined her and dined her (which was sorta sweet, actually). He had just about zero clue what to do once he got her back to the room, so she took the lead.
Three hours later, she woke up warm and tingly to find him wiped out. She slapped him and poked him and yelled in his ear. Nothing. Persistent vegetative state.
The shower threw mini-sparks of ecstasy. She made her way down to the floor, started to walk by one of the blackjack tables, glanced at the cards and suddenly realized she knew the odds of the next draw. Just like that. Just like magic.
Just like an edge.
She fled the casino before any of the security brunos recognized her, hopped in her old beater of a car, swing by her house, threw some clothes in a suitcase, and drove to Reno. She took ten grand each at ten different places, and then blew town in a hurry. Tahoe was next, and she took a few chances, but still managed to slide out before the glares and mutters of the pit-bosses got security's attention.
After that, it was every Indian casino she could reach, in California. Three weeks later, she found herself looking in the mirror of a bathroom in a luxury suite in LA. Her body didn’t ache, her eyes were bright and her skin glowed pink with health. Those lines that had started to bracket her mouth had disappeared.
Sybil had $1.3 million in the trunk of her new Lexus. She hadn't spent a dime at a health spa, but she looked at least five years younger. Best of all, she didn’t want any blow. The edge was there, it was real, and it had coke beat all to hell.
It was also temporary, and that was the lesson she learned at the casino in Scottsdale, two nights later. She stared at the cards on the table and realized she had no idea what would drop next. She lost that hand, and then two more, and the pit-boss never even looked at her.
By then, though, Sybil figured she knew what to do. She hung out in hotels and high-end bars, waiting for her nose to twitch. It had done so, three more times, but only the ability to dissolve glass had proven useful (as her friend in the diamond business could now attest...).
She looked down at Ozzy Riordan’s empty body (“RV Salesman of the Year!”), patted him on the cheek, grabbed her purse and her case, left the room and put the “Do Not Disturb” tag on the handle. The maid gave her a bright smile and promised the “señorita” she wouldn’t disturb the “señor” and wished her buenas dias. The hotel desk clerk greeted her warmly, promised the same, and asked her to come back “real soon, now.” The bellboy begged to take her overnight bag, and the valet was practically drooling as he took her keys.
Ozzy'd had one hell of an edge, and now Sybil had a month or so to figure out how to use it. Maybe she needed to visit her friend in the diamond business, again, and apply for a job, this time.
Humming to herself, she switched on the stereo, heard the special bulletin, and started to change the channel. The news was always so depressing.
Then she stopped, and listened a little more carefully. Horror. She switched to an AM news station, and listened some more.
Tragic events. Perfect timing. Officers injured. Police baffled. Manhunt under way.
Everything went exactly, perfectly, extraordinarily right for some loser of a teenaged school shooter, and wasn’t that interesting?
Sybil pulled her phone out of her Gucci bag, and looked up the address. It was only about 340 miles to Fairview. She could make that by late afternoon.
Sybil figured she could use a little luck, and if she was right, she'd like to try two edges at once. Besides, she might provide a real public service if she found this stupid kid before the cops did.
Category:Five Earths - Vignettes