Extraordinary Mistakes

February 2013

“Xiuhtezcatl, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Matthew enters his living room.

Xiuhtezcatl, the leader of the Ariston community, sits on the couch, ignores Matthew at first, and looks instead to his left. He notices Rachel and a boy in the garden dancing without a care in the world. This makes him smile. Realizing that, despite Matthew’s strict education, she still has some moments of joy.

“You won’t be pleased.”

“My dear friend, please.” Matthew smiles and approaches him. “Whatever it is, I’m sure we can work it out.”

“We can’t.” Xiuhtezcatl crosses his arms and avoids looking at Matthew. “I’ve met with the president. He wanted me to give you five, but I said no. But,” he gets up and walks around the room, “we’ll surrender. Me and some others will go to prison, but everyone else will be free.”

“Why... would you... that’s ridiculous.” Matthew’s heartbeat increases. “We are winning!”

“Deep down, I know you can tell the difference between your narrative and the truth.”

“We are winning! Look at the numbers, they have lost thousands.”

“They have thousands to lose!” He places his hand on his chest. Looks to the garden again, the children keep dancing and giggling. “Ten of us are thousands of them. I want my people to live, not just survive!”

Xiuhtezcatl’s shoulders give in and Matthew scoffs.

“Do you know what protecting the community has done to us? My sister holding the optical illusion to hide us in plain sight, the amplifier helping her, the healers taking care of them... they are in excruciating pain! Their side effects are destroying their souls. And for what?!”

“For what?!” Matthew shouts. “You say you want your people to live. This is the only way that we can.”

“We’ve lost!”

“No!” Matthew throws a vase against the wall.

Rachel and the boy are too focused on their happiness to hear it. Matthew holds his chest, trying to normalize his breath. Xiuhtezcatl looks at him and clears his throat.

“You haven’t changed. Remember when we met? You were a boy with a manifesto, and you still are.”

“My circumstances haven’t changed, how could I...?” Matthew pushes his hair back and looks up.

“They have... you are an adult now, a father. This will be your fatal flaw.”

“What nonsense is that? My fatal flaw is invincibility!” Matthew sends a fuming glance.

“Do you know why it’s called that? A fatal flaw?” Xiuhtezcatl tone drops.

“Why the sudden lesson?” He scoffs. “Sure, I’ll take the bait. Because there’s the idea that once you have the new power it will slowly shut down your body. It will kill you much earlier than you would without.”

“That’s the modern interpretation. The story that my people carried through the centuries is that you were supposed to kill anyone who had it. No matter who. If you saw someone with a second power; they were to die. All they had to do, was keep it a secret, and still they couldn’t hide it, they loved to show it around. It wasn’t the power that killed them, it was the ego.”

Matthew’s laugh fills the room.

“My dear friend, we will win. My daughter is an element controller, with Amy’s amplification, we’ll win. And when we do, that victory will be for all deviants, even the ones who crossed us.”

Xiuhtezcatl laugh’s fill the room.

“I doubt it. The only reason I’m not dead now is because I’m not really here.”

Matthew smiles, his brown eyes fixate on Xiuhtezcatl.

“Do you honestly believe that they’ll just arrest you? You and a few others... Everyone else will live happily ever after, is that it?” Matthew laughs.

“With the treaty signed in front of the entire world, he won’t do anything else. We won’t show our community until everyone sees us surrendering. The president has been under fire because of the war. Everyone wants peace.”

“You have killed his sons! Do you honestly believe he’ll put the will of the people in front of his own?” he exhales loudly.

“Matthew, surrender too. No good will come from the path that you are walking and forcing others to follow.”

“Has your mother showed you that? Because sometimes her predictions aren’t entirely accurate.”

“Every future she has seen, including you marrying her daughter, changed. There’s no fate. You should want a better life for your daughter, and for the generations to come. But your judgment is clouded by hatred.”

Matthew’s smile disappears. They face each other in silence.

“Yes, it’s no secret that I hate humans. I’ll tell you why.” Matthew takes a deep breath. “Did you know that my father was one?”

“No, your lies won’t work. Your father was the most powerful deviant you had ever met. You said-”

“Guess what? I made it up! Is this such a surprise? Really?” Matthew drops his thick capital accent and continues in a southern one. “Everything about me is made up. Matthew Moore isn’t even my name.”

Xiuhtezcatl shakes his head.

“Ironically, the humans don’t know who I really am, but they were right about my mother. She died when she had me, not because I’m the devil...” a tear almost forms on his eyes, only to be replaced with a roll of eyes. “I think! Just back luck.”

“Enough with the lies! Your entire manifesto centers around that your father, the most powerful deviant you ever met, was subdued to humans.”

“Yes, it does. It resonated with everyone. Everyone thinks they are the most powerful deviant, so they saw themselves in my words. But no, he was human. The test showed it.”

“Lies.”

Matthew rolls his eyes again and continues.

“I was a little over five when I tested positive. He found a way to cheat the system and faked my result. Interesting, isn’t it? How there isn’t anything that the right amount of money can’t buy, and my father had an impressive amount of it.”

Xiuhtezcatl sits down on the couch refusing to look at Matthew.

“So, I grew up with all the privileges of a human. Can you believe that I went to school?!” He opens his mouth wide on purpose. “Every day I grew anxious of what the future would hold for me. Would I have a power when I turned seven? My father hoped not, and when it first appeared, he told me, ‘you have to hide yourself now, son. The world won’t accept you.’ I promised him that I would never use it, and I kept that promise. I hid who I truly was.”

Matthew goes around the room and stands in front of Xiuhtezcatl.

“My father... how can I describe him? He had the kindest soul, my friend. He took in a few abandoned children, and while he taught them to respect everyone, taught them well, at school they learned differently, like I did. And I almost fell for it.”

Matthew raises his hands.

“Actually, no, this is a lie. Sorry, force of habit! I did. For a moment, I hated being a deviant. Hell, I hated myself.”

Xiuhtezcatl looks away and Matthew keeps moving to meet his eyes.

“One day, my baby sister just wouldn’t stop wailing. The more I tried to stop her tears, the more she kept going. I tried the funny faces that always worked and nothing. Every scream of hers pierced through my heart like the sharpest knife. Pierced through my heart...” Matthew laughs, “You know, back when I had one!” Matthew stops laughing. “I just wanted her to stop suffering... I wanted to take the pain away and make it better. I’m sure you can guess what happened after...”

Xiuhtezcatl finally looks at him.

“I controlled her emotions.”

Matthew looks to the garden, sees the children playing and meets again Xiuhtezcatl’s glaze.

“The change of behavior was too drastic to be natural. She told us she couldn’t understand why she was happy all of a sudden. Emotional control is too common... my siblings knew right away that one of us did it. So, my father told them that he was a deviant, thinking, ‘I raised these children to be as kind as I am’.”

Matthew smiles.

“He looked at me telling me with his eyes that everything would be okay. But in that same night, most of them, as young as 12 and no older than 16, murdered him in his sleep.”

Xiuhtezcatl’s mouth opens wide, and Matthew looks up, focuses on the mold forming on the ceiling.

“They didn’t call their teachers, no, no. Or some hotline for tips, oh no. They took care of it themselves. Sure, death is the penalty for deviants who fake being humans. But one thing is having others do it, another is doing it yourself.”

Matthew smiles.

“Now, I’ve seen my fair share of heinous acts.” He laughs, “In fact, most done by me!” the laughter grows. “You’ve heard the rumors surrounding my fatal flaw, I’m sure. Sorry, I’m losing the thread here... where was I?”

Matthew looks around the room and focuses back on Xiuhtezcatl.

“Oh yes, fair share of heinous acts... But the blood splattered all over their little bodies, and the smiles of pride they wore in their faces, that’s the only image that sends shivers down my spine, even after all these years.”

He fakes shivers on his body and laughs.

“I thought about ending their pitiful lives there and then. But I was 13 then, and I wanted the most powerful fatal flaw that I could have. Age was one of the reasons not to. But more than that, and being completely honest here, I didn’t hate them. I did not, despite what they’d done.”

His voice trembles for a second.

“I felt sorry... compassion... perhaps? And I would’ve only killed them to prevent them from living with guilt for the rest of their pathetic lives. I knew that committing the fatal flaw without the right emotions... hatred, envy, greed, wouldn’t grant me a strong new power. Kindness just wouldn’t do it.”

Xiuhtezcatl’s eyes widen.

“So, I left.”

Matthew focuses on Xiuhtezcatl and raises his voice louder than before.

“One day, children will be taught at school how humans were willing to kill us just for existing. Not because we were ‘inherently violent’, ‘impossible to educate’, ‘as savages as wild animals’. One day, people will know the truth. We must win for it to be known.”

“Even if I believe you, let me ask you something. Have you told me this to change my mind? Because-”

“Yes, I told you for that reason. Hoping you realize once and for all, for your sake, for your entire community’s sake, for our kind’s sake, for our future, the one simple truth: humans will never accept us!”