Flash Fic - Grub In The Ashes

    Everybody remembers where they were when it happened.  "Ash Friday," some call it.  "The Pyre" seems to be the more favored term.  May 4, 2029, over a half-million dead in the worst terrorist attack in history.  Period.  End of line.

    But that wasn't the end of the things, was it?  Over 500,000 people, hit with what later turned out to be a bespoke chemical weapon.  Phoenix Downs, what used to be Chase Field, accounted for almost a tenth of the body count.  The Arizona Science Center, Phoenix Children's Museum, ASU, U of A Med School, every courthouse and government building downtown.  Hell, I was across the street from the Herberger Theatre having lunch.  Nobody could possibly hate the son of a bitch who cooked it up and executed it more than me.  Dying sucks.  And yet, here I am.

    Just one percent of us died, then got better.  All of us who came back were changed.  "The Phoenix Effect."  And of that one percent, one percent of those folks, fifty-odd people, came back as something extraordinary.  The guy whose IQ suddenly jumped to four digits.  That one woman who can literally weave shadows with her fingers.  You've seen them on TV, I'm sure.  I'm not one of those folks.  In some versions of the legend, when a phoenix dies, it doesn't come back right away in bird form.  Instead, it comes back as a sort of grub at first.  For those of us that didn't hit the superpower jackpot, we didn't come away completely empty handed.  But we're definitely grubs.  From what I can tell, I might have the closest thing to a useful ability.  I can "see" into the future a little bit.  Not entirely accurate.  I don't really see it.  I just know what's coming.

    The whole thing's a monkey's paw, though.  The hypergenius?  He's solved a hundred different problems on paper, but the actual means to implement them can't be developed and deployed for like thirty years.  Even with him working on the upgrade paths.  One of the "firebirds" used to be an HR manager, apparently the really awful kind.  She got telepathy and telempathy.  She knows what everybody around her is thinking, and she's constantly breaking down because she knows what everybody feels.  And there's a lot of karma coming back on her for what she did in her day job back when.  That one guy, Rig?  You've seen him moving heavy rubble and collapsed cranes with his bare hands like they were toys.  Can't hug anybody or shake their hand because he'll squash them like a shoe coming down on a ketchup packet.  It's not much better for the grubs.  Used to be I could go into a casino, enjoy a nice meal, play a little blackjack.  Now, I can't even past the front doors because I've got a fifteen second sneak preview of the future if I think about it hard enough.  Never cheated at cards in my life.  But no more elk tenderloin at Talking Stick for this grub.  All over a "maybe."

    I'm sure that all of us, firebirds and grubs alike, could adapt.  We probably are adapting even without actively trying.  But the world can't adapt to us.  Dead, then alive again. Ordinary, then incredible.  And we're still writhing in the ashes.