Page 111 of Gifted

“Being special isn’t the problem.”

Clausen quiets and rises with a pained expression. “I hope one day you can understand. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Fuck you. I will never understand,” Daniel spits at the director as he moves toward the door.

I wait another moment after it clicks shut before returning to Daniel.

“Are you okay?” I ask, sinking beside him again.

“I don’t know how to answer that question anymore.”

Fair enough. I take his hand instead. “So what do we do?”

“Same as always. Observe, adapt, and react.”

“What?”

He squints toward the opposite wall. “Observe, adapt, and react. That’s one of the things I’ve learned from all of this. It’s how we all negotiate our existence.”

“I don’t understand.”

He pauses, a pensive expression settling over his face. “We spend our lives struggling to preserve the illusion of control over our tiny worlds, but in the end, what do you really control?”

I think for a moment. “Your choices. Your actions.”

“Right. Observe, adapt, and react. We watch, we learn, we fight back. Our world is an interaction of your choices, my choices, Clausen’s, and a vast organism on top of that none of us can tame. Control is an illusion. Clausen and I play our games, but no one wins. It can never be over.”

“You will always just react to his reaction to your reaction.”

He nods. “Exactly.”

“So life is an endless chess match.”

“With layers upon layers of games at various stages. You’ve been playing Madison’s for a while now. What do you think?”

I loop my arm through his and lean against his shoulder. “That there are no happy endings by your logic.”

“You wouldn’t even be able to recognize one if you saw it since nothing ends.”

“Maybe not, but you’re forgetting something.”

“Oh yeah?”

I smile up at him. “You have an important variable on your side. A chess piece, if you will.”

His own lips lift briefly. “Are you trying to give me hope?”

“Me? Never.”

His smile fades. “I’ve searched for a weakness in Clausen for a long time. I’d almost given up.” I wait as he gathers his thoughts. “In a world of chaos, Clausen spent his life locked in a control fantasy. He believes he’s a mastermind, a grand puppeteer. But maybe that’s only made him a prisoner of his own delusions. He’s a slave to knowledge, which, in a way, is his weakness. It gives us the power, not the other way around since we’re not just pieces of his universe, but the foundation of it. He can’t hurt us nearly as much as we will hurt him by bringing it down. And now, for the first time, I think we can.”

“How?”

“It’s already cracking.”

“You think I’m the weapon.”

He studies me, and I have to rein in the intensity of my reaction.

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