Incarnate- Essence

by Thomas Harper

  “Ohhh-kaaay…,” Doctor Taylor said, throwing her hands up, “I’ll get you that prescription right away.”

  I sighed. “Thanks.”

  Everyone stood quiet for a few moments, not seeming to know what to say to each other. Finally Doctor Taylor started back toward the stairs.

  “I’m gonna take off now,” she said, “you can pick your medication up whenever.”

  “Sure,” I said, watching her go back up the stairs.

  “Eshe,” Akira said.

  I turned to look at her, surprised when she wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

  “We’ll find you again,” she said, “we moved away, but I still consider you a friend. Make sure to tell me when…when you’re ready to die. I can give you something painless.”

  “Maybe you can just remove most of my brain,” I said as she released her embrace.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “It’s worked for you, hasn’t it?”

  She furrowed her brows. “What are you talking about?”

  “The implants,” I said, “you’re using them to shut off a bunch of your emotions. Isn’t that like taking out part of your brain?”

  “Eshe…I know you’re feeling down about Atlanta and everything,” she said, “and I’ve been where you are now. The depression. Feeling like everyone’s attacking you. And you’re drunk, so I’m going to let this go.”

  I laughed derisively. “You have no fucking clue how I feel. Just because your husband had the doctor’s screw around with your brain implants doesn’t mean you could understand.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, you didn’t figure it out?” I said, “the great genius Akira didn’t figure it out? Yeah, it was Masaru. That’s the reason you spent all those months moping around feeling sorry for yourself. He told the doctors to disable the bio-electrical power converter on your brain implants.”

  She bit her lip, contemplating this.

  “But really, I’m happy for you two,” I said sarcastically as I made my way to the stairs, “sounds like a relationship built to last.”

  Akira remained standing in the basement as I climbed the stairs.

  Fuck you, Masaru.

  The bottle of expensive whiskey, half gone, sat next to me on the bed as I strummed around on Yukiko’s small guitar. She sat on the floor below me, head turned up, eagerly watching.

  I couldn’t help but feel somewhat sluggish. My fingers felt clumsy, tripping over a note here and there, although Yukiko didn’t seem to notice. I knew it was mostly because of my inebriated state along with the nerve damage in my left hand, but I couldn’t escape a sense of paranoia about my deteriorating brain.

  “Do fast one,” Yukiko kept requesting, but I couldn’t bring my left hand to do anything very nimble.

  “I can’t,” I said, embers of impatience – with myself, with Yukiko’s ridiculous request, and with everything else – fed by alcohol.

  Her expression soured at my tone. I sighed, handing the small guitar back to her. She held it, still looking up at me, worried yet hopeful.

  “Play yours?” Yukiko squeaked, looking over to my sitar.

  “Why dunya go fine yer dad,” I said, picking up the whiskey bottle and unscrewing the cap.

  Her bottom jaw started quivering as I brought the bottle to my lips and took a long drink.

  “Should I be worried where this will lead?” Masaru asked from my bedroom dorway.

  “Dun wurry abow me,” I said, recapping the whiskey, “you shur dint when ya duh-sayed tuh leave.”

  He bit his lip, stepping in and helping Yukiko to her feet. He guided her out the door. She took one last look over her shoulder at me before heading for the stairs.

  “I never took you for an angry drunk,” Masaru said.

  “Yeah, cuz wuh would I ‘ave tubby anger ‘bout?” I said, “definly nah my fucked-up brain or theh fat tha I routeely fucked-up ever-thin I do.”

  Masaru cleared his throat. “I’m about to take off. Back home. You really ought to come visit us sometime soon.

  “Mebbe when it turs into uh gah-damn refugee camp,” I said, “affer the CSA invays this poor escuse for a polical speriment.”

  He took a deep breath. “I’ll call you sometime when you’re sober. Take care of yourself, Eshe.”

  I waved dismissively, taking the top off my whiskey and downing another large mouthful. Masaru turned and walked away, leaving the door ajar. I capped the bottle and dropped backwards onto my bed. Staring up at the ceiling, the bedroom spun around me. The thought of killing myself and starting in a new body swam through my whiskey-soaked mind.

  The fact that you haven’t done it already is ridiculous, Evita’s voice said.

  “I wus busy,” I said aloud, “apparently putten in my bess fuckin effer tuh tay-down the foury-eights.”

  “Does that mean you’re busy?”

  Startled, I sat up in bed, seeing Laura standing in the doorway.

  “I dint hear you therr,” I said.

  Her sleepy gaze fell to the floor as if keeping it on me was too much effort, “I…” She paused a moment, lifting her eyes back to me, “can I come in?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said.

  Laura walked in, shutting the door lightly behind her, and then turned back to me. She didn’t say anything for some time, leaning back against the door, looking for something to say. Finally she spoke.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said, “since Atlanta.”

  “So’ve I.”

  She took a deep breath, “everything about what happened there…it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone after those Sovereign guys. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

  “Wuh ‘bout the brain merger?” I asked.

  “The brain merger…” she said, “It’s taken me a while to…process everything. I don’t know…the things that happened to you make what I’ve been through seem like nothing. What you’ve seen and done…when our brains merged…it was like it was happening to me. Like I was doing it. And it was all so clear and vivid.” She paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “There were so many memories. I could never truly imagine just how long you’ve been around. I still can’t really grasp it. But…it’s so big. Your life. Your past.”

  “Yuh thin I’m a monsur,” I said.

  “No,” she said, taking a step closer, bringing a hand up my cheek, “no, I don’t. I…I’m in awe of you. And you know me. That’s not something I ever thought I’d say about anything. But that just made me feel worse about…about what I did in Atlanta. Trying to get my…my stupid revenge. Trying to have your baby. It was all so stupid and selfish. What you’re doing is more important than-”

  “Wait,” I said, taking a step back from her, “wuh d’you mean, tryin’ tuh haff my baby?”

  “I…that was the reason I went there,” she said, “I wanted to make a baby with you. When Kali told me that I should do it, she offered to-”

  “Kali wahned you tuh haffa baby wemme?”

  “Yeah,” she said, taking another small step toward me. I quickly backed away, going up against the wall. “I was worried that you didn’t really love me. Kali said having a baby would be the best way to prove my love to you.”

  “Why the fuck woh you thing thassa goh idea?” I snapped, “why the fuck woh Kali thing thassa goh-”

  I stopped, the answer hitting me.

  “That’s what I’m trying to say,” Laura said, “it was stupid of me. I was being stupid and selfish. After seeing inside your mind, I knew it was stupid.”

  “Kali knows,” I said, my gaze on the floor to Laura’s side, “she knows ‘bout my re-icarnation.” I raised my eyes to look at Laura, “thass why she…why she wus tryina gemme tuh marry those wemen. Why she wahneh you tuh haffa child wimme. And her family may’uh dunnit before.”

  Mya…

  I felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on, the room blurring beyond my level of inebriation.

  “Eshe…” L
aura said, stepping toward me, grabbing my hand, “I still love you. I love you even more, now. Now that we shared a mind. I was scared you were mad at me after what I did in Atlanta with-”

  “No!” I said, pulling my hand away from her’s, “no. We can’t do this. This canna happen.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We can’t be tuh-gether,” I said, “we never shoulda gotten tuh-gether inna furst place. S’all been a mistake.”

  She was about to say something, but I stepped around her and went to my bedroom door. I opened it and turned back to her, waiting for her to leave.

  “You don’t love me?”

  “No,” I said, “an’ I never could. You’re jussa child, fer fuck’s sake.”

  At this Laura did something she hadn’t done even after being shot or blown up. She broke down crying.

  “You haffa go,” I said, “you should go to the Republic wi’ Masaru. Please.”

  “W-why?” she managed to say between sobs.

  “Y’know wuh I am,” I said, “you seen it. You felt it. I’m no god. I’mma human. A monsrus human. You’n I can’t be tuh-gether. You should find someone you can actually love, and who actually loves you. Someone you can haffa normal child wis.”

  “I…I do love you,” she cried, sniffling.

  “Nuh…no, ya don’t,” I said, “s’all been one big mistake.”

  “I w-won’t leave until-”

  “I said get the fuck out!” I shouted, the pain in my head rocketing into a full-blown migraine.

  Laura said something unintelligible through her wailing sobs. I walked over, grabbed her, and pulled her toward the door. She went limp, collapsing to the floor. I dragged her across the carpet, out into the hallway.

  “Please,” I said, “you needa go. You needa cetch up wis Masaru. Call’m and tell’m tuh come back and geh you.”

  She said something else unintelligible as I closed the door, putting my back up against it. She continued crying outside the door for some time. Every once in a while, she got quieter before the sobs started anew. After half an hour, the crying hushed down to sniffling and soft weeping, I was about to say something, but I heard her get up. She paused a moment outside my door, sniffing, and then her footsteps began moving away.

  I walked over to the bed and picked up the whiskey bottle. There was still a third of a bottle left. I opened it, brought it to my mouth, and started drinking. And kept drinking. Nausea gripped my stomach, but I kept swallowing until I gagged. Doubling over, I sprayed the remaining foul liquid from my mouth, dry heaving and drooling onto the carpet.

  The world spun, darkening, fading. I wound back and threw the whiskey bottle against the wall. It fell to the floor, unbroken, the remaining contents dribbling out onto the floor.

  I turned to bed and dropped face down onto it, feeling the dampness of my own tears. My head throbbed like it was about to crack open. The world spun as a whirlpool of despair sucked me into it.

  But this was the way it needed to be.

  Everyone was gone. I was alone again.

  Chapter 50

  That night, the migraine bred with my crushing hangover, giving birth to an agonizing delirium.

  All I wanted to do was sleep. To not have to be conscious of pain. Yet sleep was worse.

  I passed in and out of strange half-asleep dreams, waking up in the dark, forehead drenched in sweat. My head throbbed, stomach lurched, eyes shut tight trying to drown the pain out, room swaying back and forth. And then back to the dreams.

  Paranoia surged. Secrets. Lies. Betrayal. Sachi’s reasons for rescuing Laura and killing the other subject. People following me from lives as far back as the nineteen seventies, coercing Mya into impregnating herself with my seed. Fake people running real businesses. The scrambled voice. The Shift epidemic. Kali’s real goals. Akira wanting to see me die. Sachi fucking Markus. Benecorp somehow always seeming to be there, getting its hands in everything, coming after me. Always after me. All the shit that’s been done to my brain. All the experiments.

  Akira’s experiments.

  Is Akira in on it, too? Is she sharing all her findings on me with Benecorp?

  I awoke, feeling Laura lying next to me. I reached a hand over. Empty. She was gone. Really gone.

  She was always awake.

  Somehow that seemed suspicious, too.

  It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t sleep. They took her sleep.

  But having her there, in my bed, always awake. Watching. Listening. Nothing I said or did would get past her, because she never slept.

  Maybe that’s why Sovereign did it. Maybe that’s why they took away her ability to sleep. So she could always be there, watching me. Reporting. Telling them how my behavior changed after all the experiments.

  Back to sleep. More waking dreams.

  I saw them.

  All of them.

  They were having a meeting in the basement lab. Akira and Masaru. Rocky and Savita. Markus and Carlito. Laura. Eddie was alive again, standing next to Savita. He wasn’t actually dead, it had all been a ruse. Even Darren was there. Sachi presiding. But not me. They talked in hushed voices, looking around to make sure I wasn’t close enough to hear them. They didn’t want me involved.

  I moved closer, trying to control my heavy breathing. Sweat soaked my bare skin. And then I spotted Tamika there. They recruited her, too. She was in on it. I moved even closer yet and then I saw Calvin Lind and Jiang Wei, Anita Patrice and Kali, Darryl Gibson and Gabriel Mitchell, Rosy and Doctor Taylor. Randy and his daughter. But Randy was young again, like I’d last seen him in my previous life.

  They were all in on it. Plotting against me. Watching. Waiting. Scheming.

  Then they all turned to look at me. Spotted. Akira walked toward me, smiling, telling me everything was alright. Her mouth moved, no sound coming out, but I knew what she was saying. They were all there to help me. I was sick in the head, but they all wanted to help me. Laura approached, her mouth also moving silently, telling me about the terrible things she had seen in my memories. Death and destruction and loneliness. Sachi was saying how important the mission was, that she needed me for the mission. Always the mission. Savita screamed silently, accusing me of murder. When I looked to Eddie, his face was melted off, the gaping hole where his mouth was supposed to be now emitting a silent shriek as his hands pawed at the bloody pulp on the front of his head. Randy looked old now, a beer in his hand and despair in his face. Laura’s face looked like it had in the mirror before she died. Ugly. Hateful. Masaru whispered something to Darren, both of them keeping their eyes on me.

  As soon as Akira and Laura got up to me, everyone disappeared, leaving me alone. True silence. I walked up the stairs of the house, finding it empty. They had all left. I was alone. But I’d always been alone.

  I ran to the door, stepping outside, finding the place barren. Cortez wasn’t there. The plants were gone. Nothing but barren, jagged landscape with no end. When I looked back, the house was gone, too. No wind. No animals. No friends. No enemies. Only yawning silence. The black sky lay empty. Vast emptiness all around me. Darkness engulfed the horizon from every direction, closing in.

  I sat down on the hard rock, watching. Eons of hollow oblivion passed me by in an instant. All I could do was sit and bear witness as the world fell away around me.

  Sachi is wrong. We’re not guardians…merely observers. Here to watch until the bitter end.

  Almost evening the next day. The migraine slowly subsided. The entire bed damp with sweat. Eyes burning from crying My mouth was dry and phlegmy.

  And I was alone.

  I groaned, turning about under the covers. The dreams and thoughts I’d had grew distant, but I remembered them.

  Were they my thoughts? Or were they my other hemisphere?

  I sat up in the bed, rubbing my temples. The idea of everyone conspiring against me felt so convincing, but it gave way to confusion.

  Would they even care enough to conspire against me?

  T
he house felt large and empty as I pulled myself out of bed, going out into the hallway. I peered into Laura’s room. Laura’s old room. It was emptied except for a few odds and ends. I stepped in, seeing the art pieces I made that she left behind. Along with them were her own art pieces. She hadn’t taken any of them with her.

  …I miss her…

  It didn’t matter. I would get over her as time went by. Laura would grow old and die and I would continue living. This was for the best. For both of us. It had been a mistake from the beginning.

  Perhaps you can patch things up with Sachi, Evita said, she’ll be around forever.

  “I’m not even thinking about that right now,” I said, leaving Laura’s room.

  I made my way down the stairs into the living room. The creaks and groans of the house seemed amplified now that I was alone. It was strange being alone again, even though that was how I had spent so much of my time before…

  Before meeting Sachi.

  I had been alone in the house before, but knowing that everyone was gone for good made it different. The emptiness. The loneliness. The sounds taunted me as I made my way into the Kitchen, going through the motions of preparing my instant coffee. I put the kettle on the electric stove and turned it on. I stood watching.

  A watched pot never boils, Evita said.

  “Good,” I said aloud, “then I can spend the rest of eternity watching this damn pot.”

  If I could do that, then I wouldn’t get anyone else into my shit.

  Coffee wasn’t good enough. I went to the refrigerator and opened the freezer. One of Laura’s unopened bottles of vodka was still there. I took it out and walked to the sink, looking out the window. Afternoon was already dimming into evening.

  Late enough to start drinking again then.

  I opened the vodka and took several swigs, choking it down. By then the kettle was whistling. I ignored it for some time, looking out the window, watching the world grow darker.

  An apt metaphor for my future.

  I took another drink and then shut the burner off, quieting the kettle’s incessant screeching. I didn’t even bother making the coffee, going back to the window to look outside.