On Giorgia

ON GIORGIA

         The first thing Giorgia felt was the pressing of hard metal buttons onto her face. She jerked upward, and used her hand to investigate the surface of her cheek. A bump. A bit of smooth skin. A bump. Another flat stretch. A glance at her reflection in her phone confirmed her fears. She sighed. The keys of her typewriter had left circular indents along the side of her jaw.

         Even a quick glance at her workspace would make any man wonder how she was able to pass out at all - paper cups stained by pitch-black coffee lined the back of her desk, which emanated the bean’s bitter stench in an observable radius. And yet, despite the fact she had numbed her tongue with the hot, caffeinated elixir, she had still managed to lay unconscious at her desk for five hours.

         Five hours - the time on the clock confirmed this theory. The last time she had checked the glowing red fixture it had scarce stroked eleven, yet now it read four. She had been working on borrowed time, and as the stimulating effects of her bitter beverage of choice left her body, her brain had decided to collect.

         She next glared at the clunky metal device she worked on, as if to disassemble it with force of anger alone. If she had worked on her laptop, the uncomfortable blue glow would have preserved her consciousness through the hours of the early morning. But she knew her story would be wrong if written anywhere else.

         The shambling heirloom she worked on, a gift from her father, empowered her in a mix of bravery and fear. Each word was permanent, unrestricted - she could hardly censor herself if she was unable to take back her words. She knew this was intentional on her father’s part - a remnant of his beliefs from the watchdog era of journalism.

         The only other gift he had left was a small pen, which never left Giorgia’s pocket. The thin metallic tube had to be used with ink, a feather - and bizarrely, an agate, adorning the top. These were the only things partitioned to her in his will, not a penny was left to her name. “My daughter will make her way in the world without my help.” She remembered exactly how it was written in the will, the surprise in the lawyer’s voice as the words left his mouth. She struggled to forget.

         The story could wait. She needed to sleep - on a bed, not atop the cold metal of her inherited device. She stood up and made way towards the door - but as she rose, she stopped. Every shelf, every drawer had been taken out and searched. Her desk was the only one that remained untouched.

         A distinctive click signified that a gun had just been primed. Giorgia spun towards the source of the noise - a hooded figure wielding a handgun.

         “Woah, woah. Okay. If you’re here to get ridda something, I guarantee you it’s not in my desk. All the big deal papers are elsewhere.” Giorgia enunciated, stepping back to her desk. Her hand wrapped around her pen.

         “Where is it?” The figure replied, stepping closer to her.

         “You’re gonna have to be more specific, we’re journalists, we’ve got a lotta papers that a lotta people would like to see furnaced-”

         The figure struck her across the face with the brunt of their gun.

         “I do not care about papers. I hoped to take it without causing a scene, but I could not find it. Daughter of Samson Gand, where is what I am looking for?” The figure continued as Giorgia slowly recovered from being struck.

         Giorgia glared at him stoically. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

         The figure swung again from the other side, but Giorgia’s hand shot up from her side and blocked it. The brunt of the gun struck her hard in the wrist, but the interception gave her enough time to draw her pen from her other pocket. She thrust the writing implement through the air and forced the tip into her attackers arm. As she ripped it back out, her attacker shouted as his gun fell from his hands.

         Giorgia sent the weapon across the room with a kick. As her assailant ran to retrieve it, she rushed to the window as she removed her coat. She heard the intruder picking his weapon off the floor as she placed her coat against the glass. A gunshot pierced the air as she vaulted through the window.

         The escaping woman tossed her glass-filled coat aside as she sprinted down the street. She could hear the footsteps of the hooded figure behind her. She turned around. He was pointing his gun at her.

         “I do not have to hurt you, ma’am. I saw you holding it - you used it to attack me. That pen is worth more than you realize. You cannot begin to comprehend what it is. This can all be over if you give it to me.”

         Giorgia laughed. She laughed in the middle of the street. She laughed at a figure who could have killed her right there, if they pleased. In one smooth motion, the pen left her pocket, and was held firmly in Giorgia’s palm in front of her.

         “I don’t think you know what you’re stepping in. Why don’t you tell whoever wanted this pen that it’s long gone, and I won’t have to hurt you. You feel me?” Giorgia imposed, smirking at her assailant. The hooded figure raised his gun to eye level. Giorgia crossed her arms, still holding the pen.

         “This is your last warning, ma’am-”

         “Temporal Integration: Muckraker.”

         The moment Giorgia began uttering an integration, the figure fired. The ground shook as the asphalt between them began to be torn asunder. A writhing column of mud burst from the earth and began flailing as it took form. The bullet was lost within the mass as it began to take shape - segmenting into two sections, which slowly became more and more rounded and oblong.

         The figure let loose the rest of his clip into the eruption of matter, trying to stop it from completing whatever it was trying to complete. Yet it still managed to excrete another blob from the end of it, which became semi-rectangular as five more tendrils sprouted from it seemingly randomly. By the time the assailant had finished reloading, he looked up to see the completed massive arm that was coming out of the cracked street.

         “I can’t believe you were dumb enough to follow me outside - I was just trying to get to a big enough space to beat you with this thing.”

         “I cannot comprehend - all of our data suggested you could not integrate. All of your interactions with your friends from the mob, you never knew what they were talking about-”

         “Maybe I’m just a good liar, ever think of that?”

         A ball of dark brown liquid formed emerged from within the arm. The hand wrapped around it, and launched it at the hooded figure. They hardly managed to not get hit dead center, but the mass of mud struck them in the side and knocked them prone.

         They attempted to stand, but found themselves pressed against the ground, as if the mud was holding them down. They quickly found themselves frozen in place as the mud hardened into a thick clay-like substance.

         Giorgia swung her arm downward with an expressive gesture, and the large mud appendage retreated into the ground. She then made a similar gesture pointed upwards, and the arm once again erupted from under the hooded figure, the hand wrapping around their torso.

         The figure was in pain, petrified. The arm was crushing their lungs, making it hard to breathe.

         “Listen. You’re gonna listen to me, okay?”

         The figure nodded weakly.

         “Giorgia. My name is Giorgia. I’m not ma’am, I’m not Samson’s daughter. I’m Giorgia. And lemme tell you something - I’m not one of those hero types you saw me talking with. You see this big arm?”

         She had the arm crush him tighter for emphasis.

         “This is a tool for self defense. I love those guys, I do, I can’t get enough of ‘em - but I’m not gonna use this thing to go on big magical adventures. I’ve got too much to do in the world people can see.”

         The arm got even tighter as she carried on. The hooded figure could hardly breathe.

         “And here you are, trying to take me away from the good work I do, trying to drag me into this big world of time keys and powers and stuff - how dare you. I avoid this kind of thing like the plague and you brought it to my doorstep. So whoever you’re working for - they can’t know I have powers. They can’t get me tugged any deeper into this. So if you can tell me who you work for, I’ll let you go and relay the message to them.”

         "I am not working for anybody.”

         “Likely story.” Giorgia made the hand twist tighter. The hooded figure heard one of their ribs snap as pain erupted through their torso.

         “No, I am not! Honest! I- I was here to steal your key for resale. I was at the funeral- I knew what it was as it was being handed to you.”

         “Well you sure as shit missed your opportunity then, and sure did take your sweet time to come back and try and take it. Hell, I didn’t know what it was back then.”

         “I worked for an official organization, back then. This rogue period was a recent development. I need the money. I need that key.”

         “Holy hell, you actually are working alone, aren’t you? Well, that works out better for me. I can end all of this right now - get rid of the only person who knows about this.”

         “What? No, no, you cannot! Think of the bystanders, somebody must be watching!”

         “Lemme tell you something. I’m an investigative journalist. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s how willing people are to not believe what they see - they won’t think any of this is real. They’ll chock up the giant hand to a bad dream.”
The hand gripped around the hooded figure tighter and tighter. They could only breathe in quick gasps as the mud pressed against their lungs. Their arms and legs twisted and broke as they were compressed further.

         “I thought- I thought you all- your group- could not kill-”

         “You must have me confused for somebody else.”

         A final crack sent a feeble breath into the air as bones fell into organs. The hand, holding a limp body, receded back into the earth.