Wally

by Rowan Massey

  “So why…” I couldn’t finish my sentence.

  “Because Avi is getting older, and he has no one. He wants Atul to come here and live with him so that he won’t be so lonely. He thinks that can happen if fielders are cured, and he’s losing patience.

  “Avi has had a handful of wives, but they all lost his trust, or he lost theirs. Atul has been his only constant in life. They’re each other’s best friend and worst enemy at the same time. It took me a long time to understand them. I think all the money and power has ruined their family. As Avi tells it, they used to be an ordinary suburban bunch. He talks about vacations they had at a lake every summer. Things changed after their father got a taste of power. Their mother seems to quietly live under his thumb.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you all this. It’s just that I’m beginning to believe what Avi has been saying about Atul getting attached to you. Maybe you should know what kind of family you’re getting into.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want a new family, even if they ruled the world. I had one already, and they were in Emporium worried about me.

  “He’s just my boss,” I said. If Doc wanted me to become something else, I didn’t want to think about it right then. “Can we set up the chair so that it faces out the window this time?”

  “Sure,” he said, and jumped to his feet, going over to the armchair to drag it into position.

  I was done with the soup and was still hungry, but I only wanted to dance and come back having that feeling of wanting to hug somebody. Without complaining, I went and got in the chair again. London set up the camera, put the cap on my head, the wires on my chest, and strapped me down. Maybe I didn’t mind it as much because Avi wasn’t there, or maybe because I wanted to take the normal fielders so bad.

  London fed me the pill, I crunched it between my teeth, we waited, and I left the straps like they were nothing but paper. Stepping through the window, I looked up at the stars, then down at the lit city. I couldn’t tell up from down. I was in a sphere of lights. There were buildings everywhere, people everywhere, and stars in between it all.

  I was ready to explore Manhattan again. I walked in the park, stars playing in the air like fireflies. No, they were dancing to the music that came from a large orchestra of musicians hiding in the trees. I became a firefly myself and danced on the night air until there was nothing else in existence. Music and dancing forever.

  ◆◆◆

  “He’s waking up. You said he was sedated.”

  “He is. He should be.”

  Cold entered my arm, and I felt my arms and legs being grabbed by too many sets of hands, pulling me away from the chair. I was lifted—fingers digging into my skin, grunts of effort all around me—and laid on a bed that made a crinkling plastic sound. I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t.

  “What are you doing!”

  London! Hug me! I had such a great time! But I can’t wake up.

  “Don’t interfere.” Avi? “I’ve found an anomaly in him. We can’t send him back to Emporium to die on a field where he’ll rot on the ground before his brain can be preserved.”

  “What are you going to do? Kidnap him? Atul won’t—”

  “Oh, fuck off, London! Atul isn’t here. If you won’t help, you’re a hindrance. Leave. Go home.”

  “What are you doing with him?”

  “His brain needs to be preserved. We have all the data we need, now we need his brain and the transactions happening in there.”

  “A brain biopsy?”

  “No.”

  Silence.

  “Everyone leave, please. Wait in the living room.” Avi’s voice was deep and angry.

  Several sets of footsteps left the room. The door closed.

  “You’re going to kill him? He’s just a boy. Even you wouldn’t do this.”

  No! I want to die on the field!

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t. But I would preserve his brain for my brother after Wally dropped during an ordinary trip. That’s the story, London.”

  “Why? Why his whole brain?”

  “Think! His brain is a resource now. Things are happening in there that we can use in the lab to recreate it in other people, but we’ll need all the brain tissue we can get. This could easily be the end to Atul’s nonsense. I know you love that insane man as much as I do. Don’t you want him home?”

  “Not if we have to kill his…his…”

  “His what? His new puppy? This is the third one in four years. There will be more. There’s only a hundred needy teenage boys around every corner. He can father them to his heart’s content from here. From home. And besides, if he needs family, he already has one. He needs to move on from Ryker’s death and stop isolating himself. You know that.”

  “I know you can’t kill this boy and harvest his brain like some mad scientist! It’s not happening, Avi!”

  The bed I was on jostled side to side until I worried my limp body would fall off. Why couldn’t I wake up all the way? I wanted to reach out for London, but couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t scream for help. Maybe the housekeeper would save me if London couldn’t. Maybe those other people would stand up for me if they saw I was scared.

  The jostling stopped and a hand pressed against my chest.

  “Stop! Stop! Alright! I’ll help if you just let me take care of him until it’s over. Let me be in charge of his care.”

  London. Don’t say that. Please.

  “Fine. That’s fine with me.”

  “What did you give him, Avi? The same sedative?”

  “No, it’s a general anesthetic. He’s already out cold, but only for about twenty minutes.”

  “That’s unreliable for fielders.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I’ll talk to the surgeons about it. I can’t believe you’re making them do this.”

  “You will all punish me when it’s over, I’m sure.”

  The bed moved. It was rolling, rattling, turning, and I was going to have my brain taken out while I was still awake. Alive. The doctors were all talking in tense voices. The bed stopped.

  Terror washed over my body in waves of electricity, making me want to puke, but I couldn’t react to the fear by fighting or running. The feeling of tears on my face was familiar now, and they started coming from my closed eyes, even though my face was loose and blank. Someone quickly wiped them away.

  “This sedative is fine, actually, but we’ll use something else for the surgery.” London’s voice close to my head.

  “He’ll need to be kept alive while another dose of fielders goes into his system, then we’ll start—”

  Who was that? One of the surgeons?

  “We’ll talk about it when we get to the OR. Also, I’m going to prep him myself. I know more about fielders than the rest of you, and I need to plan for certain things. The anesthetic has to be well timed.”

  “Agreed, London. Don’t worry. We’ll do this right.”

  I was rolling again. I couldn’t believe what London was doing. He was as bad as the rest. But I was glad to hear I’d be on fielders while they did it. I wouldn’t be on earth feeling it happening. I’d just go off into the stars and never come back, just like I always believed I would.

  The bed rolled into the elevator. A hand was on my chest, and I hoped it was London’s. Even if he’d turned out to be a dick, it was still comforting. I felt the weird motion as we moved down through the building, then a ding, and I was rolling again. The whole time, I could hear quiet voices discussing doses and surgery. I heard about brain parts and preservation, but I could barely understand their doctor language. Someone said they should wait until they’d had more time to plan, but London argued that there was no need for that.

  The bed stopped, and there was activity all around me while I focused hard on my hand, trying to move it. My eyeballs moved a little, but not because I was telling them to. They were just wobbly.

  Something cold touched my leg, and my pant leg was pulled on. What the fuck?
They were cutting my clothes off! The scissors snipped all the way up both my legs and they pulled my pants out from under me, then did the same to my shirt. The room was cold. I expected my underwear to go next, but they left them on. My floppy arms were lifted, and they pulled something onto me that I thought was going to be a shirt because it had sleeves, but it covered me all the way to my knees, and they didn’t turn me over to pull it around my back. I was just glad not to feel naked in a room full of strangers.

  The hand touched my chest again, rubbing in a circle the way London had rubbed my back. I hated him and wanted to jump up and cling to him at the same time. Why was he going along with it? Another tear fell out of my eye. London wiped it away before it could reach my ear.

  “Alright, he should be fine for another five minutes or so, right?” London said. “Everyone meet me in the conference room so we can discuss. I’ll be right there. He needs another dose.”

  On the way out, they talked about surgical supplies. Avi wanted to keep my blood and organs too, but one of the doctors thought it was pointless.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, London’s hand touched my cheek.

  “If you’re awake, I’m so sorry. I’m getting you out of here, sweetie. You’re about to be able to move, okay? Hang in there.”

  My mind lit up with relief and excitement. I wanted to sit up and shout, but I was still stuck. I focused on my hand and eyelids, ready to start moving as soon as the drug wore off.

  I heard London open the door, and my heart jumped. What was he doing? My bed moved again. He was taking me out of the room. The bed rolled quickly down the hall, back into an elevator. Fuck, it was exciting. We were escaping! I was going home to Spitz and Fiona!

  My lip twitched and my chest heaved. I was so ready to walk around on my own. When I breathed out, I made a little hum.

  “Wally? You’re doing great, buddy. Try to move.”

  I could control my eyes and my lungs. My mind pulled at my eyelids, and they opened just a crack, and for only a second, but I saw a fuzzy hallway moving past.

  “I’m heading for the bunk room to find you some clothes,” London said. “They’re going to figure me out any second, so you have to try hard to move. I can’t get you into my car otherwise. Understand?”

  The bed jerked to a stop, and when the motion made my leg roll to the side, I rolled it back. I was moving. I was doing it! My eyes opened and stayed that way. My vision cleared just in time to see London disappear into a room. My fingers moved, so I made two fists, then lifted them. It felt amazing, and I grinned.

  I could hear London arguing with someone, but couldn’t make out what he was saying until he opened the door and said, “Look! Eighty bucks! You can buy brand new fatigues and boots, alright?”

  When he turned to me, hands out to move the bed using the rails that I could now see on both sides of my body, he startled.

  “Wally! Did you just wake up, or have you been awake?”

  “Been awake,” I said, but I could only whisper.

  “Oh my god. I’m so sorry, sweetie. Can you sit up? We need to hurry.”

  He laid the clothes and boots on the bed and came closer to put an arm around my shoulders and help me lift myself into a sitting position. I took a deep breath and moved my head side to side, testing myself out. I was wearing a rough, blue dress. I bunched it in my hand and pulled it off. My movements were slow and weak, but I was getting better by the second. The control was amazing. A crazy laugh tried to come out, but I swallowed and kept it in.

  London lowered the left rail, and a minutes later, he had helped me get dressed in a baggy, gray army uniform. The boots were too big, and there were no socks, but London laced them up tight. They were the exact kind of boots Doc had given me. I slid off the bed onto my feet and stood, London watching me with his arms out, ready to catch me.

  “I feel good,” I said, my voice normal again.

  “Can you walk? Fast?”

  I took a step. My muscles felt loose, but I could do it.

  “This way,” he said. “Back exit.”

  We hurried down the hall, London helping me along. There were lit-up exit signs at every turn, and we followed them until we came to a heavy door with a push bar.

  It was still dark out. The fresh air was cold and felt like freedom in my lungs. I’d missed it after being indoors for two days, but I couldn’t stop to enjoy it. My legs were working fine. The big boots would be a problem if we had to run, but London wasn’t keeping close in case he needed to catch me anymore.

  We were in a parking lot, and he was walking in a straight line to a white car with shiny paint.

  “Do you think they’re after us now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said as he took his keys out and unlocked the car with the button thingy. “And fuck them.”

  We got in the car. London had us backing up out of the parking spot and speeding around so quickly that my heart started racing. I had to hold on to the handle above the widow when he took a sharp turn onto the street.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The border. Atul is on the road heading here. He got worried and called me when you didn’t check in…”

  “He did? When?”

  The car slowed for a red light, and London turned to me and bit his lip. His long hair was starting to frizz out as if it knew London was stressed. “While you were high during the first experiment,” he said.

  “What did he say? Did you tell him what Avi was doing?”

  “Wally…” He sighed and went through the light as soon as it turned green. “I live here. I have to be careful navigating my relationship with those two. I told him parts of it, but not everything. I said we were doing some tests with you, and you’d just been busy and forgot to call him.”

  I pressed my lips together, not knowing what to say or how to feel about London. He was saving me, but he’d been part of the torture in the first place. He could have been honest with Doc, and I would have been back in Emporium yesterday.

  “So then why is Doc coming to Manhattan?” I asked.

  “Because I called earlier today and fessed up. You were supposed to head home in the afternoon, so obviously he was going notice you didn’t make the train, and he was going to get all that data from Avi anyway by spying. I thought he should know so he’d be ready to take care of you when you got back, but he left Emporium as soon as he could to come get you. He would have left right away if he knew Avi was…Jesus Christ…”

  “If he knew Avi was going to murder me,” I finished for him.

  He looked upset, but didn’t say anything for a few minutes. The streets were mostly empty, and he stopped at every light but sometimes went through them if there was nobody coming from the other direction.

  “Thanks,” I said. No matter how I felt about London, because of him, I wasn’t going to get my brain scooped out.

  “No, don’t thank me,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have gone along with any of it. I’m so sorry. So sorry, Wally. I promise you, I’ve learned my lesson.”

  I moved my jaw side to side, not sure yet if I forgave him, even if I thought I probably would later, just like I’d forgiven Veronica, Nando, and Doc.

  Out the window, I noticed the buildings getting shorter. We were getting close. The clock on the stereo said it was almost five in the morning. I thought about Doc driving through the night to come get me. It would be a long drive home, and I wondered how he could do it without sleep. Maybe we would have to stop somewhere. It didn’t matter. I wanted to see him. He was part of Emporium. Part of home. I thought of all the times I’d seen him and talked to him on the field over the years and never known about this enormous part of his life and his enormous fortune. I was tired of not knowing what to feel about people. I just wanted to ignore everything and pretend it was all normal.

  As we pulled up to the border and its gate, my mind went to my friends and Nando. I wanted to see their faces so badly. It felt like I hadn’t seen them for a hundred year
s, and worse, I felt like a different person; like they wouldn’t know me anymore when I got there.

  London asked for the head guard, and when the man walked up to the window, he recognized him and waved us through.

  I was out. I never wanted to see Manhattan again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Doc had brought Eric with him. The security man drove while Doc and I sat in the back, both of us too exhausted to talk to each other.

  When we’d all met at the border, London had gotten a death glare from Doc that made him look at his shoes as if he’d been a bad little boy. They’d said a few words to each other before we left in opposite directions. I heard London say something about the data being on the cloud just before I closed the door of Doc’s SUV.

  Now, Doc was slumped in the seat beside me, looking over the records of what they’d done to me on his laptop. The sun was coming up, turning the blackness into gray.

  “They made you go through withdrawal?” Doc asked. It was the first thing he’d said to me.

  “Yeah. Night before.” I didn’t look at him, just watched the trees go by outside.

  He was quiet for a long time, until I finally looked over at him. The laptop sat on his lap with the screen saver running. He was looking out his own window, but turned to me when he noticed me looking.

  “I wanted you to get away for a little while to recover and learn useful things for the job. I thought you would enjoy seeing the park and would have plenty of time to think about your life choices. That’s all I wanted. I swear to you, Wally.” He looked like he was in physical pain, and put a hand to his stomach. “My brother is unpredictable and emotional. It’s why I avoid my family. They have the power and money to do absolutely anything, and they’re like spoiled children sometimes. I thought you would meet Avi only in passing. I have no idea why he did what he did. Looking at the research—if you could even call it that—isn’t telling me much so far. He wanted to…take your brain?”

  “They were going to cut my brain out while I was still alive,” I told him, touching my head. “Avi said it had an abomaly, and that it has to be preserved because it will rot out on the field when I die and be wasted.”