by Meli Raine
What do people do when given entree into a secret world?
They indulge their ego, right?
They search for information about themselves.
Whether it's simple inclusion in a secret Facebook group or access to a DNA ancestry site, the average person types their own name, clicks Search, and reads voraciously, seeking validation, importance, perspective.
In that, I am no different.
I find my file.
I read.
I am disappointed.
Callum Poehlman. Age four when delivered. Parents were abusive, convicted of manslaughter against an older child, seven years my senior. Poehlman is not my original last name. That information is redacted in the file.
I had a brother. Our parents killed him.
Rage races through me like a warrior leading the charge in battle. Stateless saved me from that. Saved me from the same fate as an older sibling I will never meet again.
Dreams flip through my mind, the older boy in them suddenly clear. The beating he took must have been from my father. Who else could the man holding the thick piece of wood be? Red tinges the end of it as the boy holds up his hands against the blows.
I run, my quiver banging against my hip, the bow slipping from my fat fingers, feet unsure on the forest floor as I hear a woman shout, “Run! Why? Ack! Run!”
The blue glow of the computer screen makes nausea settle in, the starkness of the words, the black slashes on the computer screen from redaction, the scanned older files from twenty-three years past as familiar to me as a monk's scroll in an archive.
“What is my real name?” I whisper, needing to know. Gut twisting with emotion, it grips me unlike any other physical feeling, as if feelings become electrical impulses in my body, sentient and filled with specific intent.
I have to know.
I will know.
Over the years, we've been told not to ask about our origins, to be grateful for being selected, to find purpose in our mission.
But knowing I had a brother, one who died but I was saved, fills me with too much, crowding out gratitude, displacing the honor of sanctuary here in this project of all projects.
Rational thought turns to a storm inside, my fingers running code sequences to override systems, knowing there are unredacted files somewhere, and likely more pieces of the puzzle that is me. Naming my brother will give me clarity.
Naming myself will give me closure.
Failure after failure on the keyboard mounts up until I realize I may trip a security protocol from too many attempts. Sitting on my hands, I rock back and forth until an explosion of emotion makes me stand, the cement wall taking a beating as I vent on it.
That just serves to bloody my knuckles and nothing more.
And then it hits me.
Kina.
Kina works here. Kina works in the nursery, where children come in. She is the entry point for all children.
What's her security access profile?
Chapter 26
Kina
I had no idea there was a mirror on that wall.
It's the one behind me in the nursery as I turn around after settling the new little baby girl into what is now her crib. My reflection is contemplative, matching my internal state, head tilted as if the weight of my head is too much for my neck to bear fully.
And then my image speaks.
“You still look exactly like me. I would have thought you'd gain weight. Look older. Have different laugh lines.” My mind can’t reconcile the fact that there is no mirror, but there isn’t. This is just my twin, standing before me for the first time in nine years, acting like time doesn’t matter.
Glen sounds disappointed. She is leaning against the wall, not bothering to whisper, a smirk on her face, the scent of light perfume tingling my nose as if it's trying to lure me somewhere dangerous.
I practically swallow my own tongue, but recover and hiss, “I haven't laughed much for nine years.” Shooing her into the hallway, she reluctantly obeys, brows down in a look of annoyance. We walk into the laundry room, where I grab a load from the dryer and take pains to do anything but make eye contact.
“Trust me. Neither have I.” Mouth pursing, she suddenly looks malevolent.
“Why would I trust you?”
As her eyes narrow, it's clear this is not how she thought her homecoming would begin.
“Is this how you greet your own twin after nine years?”
“How would you like to be greeted?” I ask, folding a onesie, turning to her with my hands clasped before me, face as neutral as possible.
“Come on, Kina. Don't be like this.”
“Don't be like what?”
“You're sublimating your own shame at not being allowed to leave and making me the bad guy. What happened nine years ago wasn't my fault.”
“Why are you here now, Glen?”
“Because of what happened with Romeo.”
“Word gets out fast.”
“It does when you're at my level. The president was very unhappy to learn that his head of security – a private lead he chose outside the Secret Service – committed suicide in the very same sex club where Senator Nolan Corning died.” Shrewd eyes comb over me carefully, evaluating what I know as she drops signal words to test me.
“Sounds like a deadly place for Stateless operatives.”
The look she gives me is indescribable.
“I saw you on the television today. Standing behind him. Congratulations for fulfilling so much of your mission,” I add, knowing it will please her.
It does.
“That's more like it,” she says, reaching for me, her hug too irresistible to turn down. Until Callum touched me just a few hours ago, no one had made contact with my body in an inviting way.
Other than a baby.
No one in nine years.
Her embrace makes me loathe myself for needing it so much.
“You're tighter. More muscular. Coiled power is in your arms. Your biceps are thicker than mine,” she marvels as we hug. My comfort turns to a dawning sense that the gesture of affection is nothing of the sort.
It's an evaluation. A physical. A series of measurements designed to give her data.
I am being catalogued.
Peeling out of her arms, I put as much distance as I can between us, heart pumping so hard, as if it can fill the void between us through sheer effort.
“Would you like to measure my blood pressure and see the results of my latest pap smear?” I ask her. “Though I'm sure you have access to those files.”
“No need to get snarky.”
“Callum told me everything.”
“Did he? Define ‘everything’.”
“You're the one who hit me the night of The Test. You killed Judi. You and Angelica conspired to keep me here. You told them to make me the Training Body.”
“And you... believed him? You actually fell for that bullshit?”
“Angelica confirmed it.”
“Confirmed what, exactly?”
“That you told them to make me the training body. How could you?”
“You think an eighteen-year-old trainee had the power to make the leadership do anything? Are you insane?”
She's not yelling. Not screaming. No emotion is on her face. Just a calm, rational cool that makes this hurt more.
“Angelica and Callum said – ”
“Romeo just died, Kina. In the field. In a highly unusual way. There's a power vacuum. Callum is back. Angelica, Callum and I are vying for Romeo's position. People will say anything to get a strategic advantage.”
“Including you.”
“Of course, me!”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because you want to.”
All the air in my body releases. The truth of that simple sentence is a single bullet that shatters my heart. Not because she's disappointed me, or hurt me, or lied.
It's because she's right.
I'm that weak.
&nb
sp; “I do,” I admit. “I do.”
“Don't you see, Kina? You can't even tell whether you can trust your own twin sister. How can Stateless trust you out in the field? I hear you're good with the babies. That serves a purpose. You contribute in your own way. If you'd come with me, you would have failed spectacularly. Here, you succeed as you can.”
If her words were a knife, each would twist deeper and deeper until the blade snapped.
“Tell me about your success,” I say, pivoting.
“What do you already know?”
“Nothing! Until today, I hadn't seen your face in nine years.”
“That is a lie.”
“Huh?”
“You see it every day in the mirror, hundreds of times,” she teases.
Who looks in the mirror hundreds of times a day? I want to ask, but don't.
I just smile.
It encourages her.
“I am the president's new assistant. After his last one – Anya Borokov?”
I nod so she knows I know the story. Anya Borokov was President Harwell Bosworth's long-time assistant, rising up the ranks with him from being DA to Attorney General to state rep to national senator. As he was running for president, it was revealed she handed his daughter, Lindsay, off to a group of violent psychopaths who tortured her before her chief of security (and now husband), Drew Foster, could rescue her.
Anya and her daughter, Jane, were implicated in the scandal. Anya killed herself in jail. Jane was exonerated.
That's the official story.
I know much more.
“After her,” Glen continues, “the presidential campaign took a rocky turn. His daughter ran off and eloped with her ex-boyfriend, the man who saved her.”
“Drew Foster.”
“Yes. He's turned out to be a cunning adversary. Having me in the Oval Office gives us a huge advantage, though.”
“How, Glen? How did you do it?”
A hair flip could be her only answer. A few seconds pass. I wonder if that's it, but then:
“Marshall Josephs.”
“Who?”
“I worked for a number of congresswomen as a floating aide, until I finally found a permanent position with a Pennsylvania rep. Josephs is the president's chief PR person. He called around and asked for me.”
“He's Stateless, isn't he?”
“Yes.”
“Is the president?”
She laughs. “What do you think?”
I shrug.
“Josephs got me an interview. Harry liked what he saw. I have no baggage. I'm young. No long history the press can drag through the mud. He likes that I know technology so well. It's a simple job. Far easier than I expected.”
“And you're a key conduit for surveillance.”
“Of course.”
“But Josephs is even higher.”
One corner of her mouth lifts. She looks so much like Romeo I blink to make it go away. “Is Marshall Josephs screwing the president?”
“I don't know. You tell me, Glen.”
Laughter, unrestrained and glorious, comes pouring out of her. “Ah, Kina. I've missed you.”
Have you? I want to ask, but don't.
“I've missed you, too.” It's true. I really have.
Her phone buzzes. She looks down. “Damn. I have to go.”
“Already?”
In the distance, a baby's piercing cry cuts through the air. She nods toward the sound. “Looks like you do, too. The work never ends.”
“You're going back to DC?”
A rushed hug is my only answer.
And then she's just... gone.
The newborn's cry is painful to hear, urgent and filled with a signal designed to make humans respond. Wired for survival, we do whatever our limited skill set allows us to keep going, to find homeostasis.
Dare I say it – to thrive.
Survival is more basic. It's about sheer existence. Anything more is a luxury.
And luxury comes with costs.
Little Miss No Name Yet is red faced and mewling by the time I get to her, and as I slide my hand under her rump I understand why. She is soaked. Changing a wet diaper and making a baby comfortable is so much easier than dealing with adult problems.
Mission accomplished for the newborn in three minutes, and soon she's on her back, wrapped like a burrito, eyes drifting as I rub her tummy slowly.
And then I tense, shoulders hunching, because someone is behind me.
Someone unsafe.
The room has nine cribs in it, the tiny one for the new arrival an addition that makes maneuvering even more difficult. There are two doors I can choose, but the one behind me is blocked, and the other – the other leads to another room with toddlers.
Confrontation is my only option.
Whipping around, I see a blonde trainee I do not know well, a boy of no more than seventeen, his hair a bit grown out, eyes vibrant with the excitement of transgression.
I know that look.
And I am surrounded by tiny little dependent bodies who rely on me.
Which means I have to let him take my body.
A second man, only his shoulder and long leg showing, appears behind him. Both wear black.
“Cowards,” I whisper. “Doing this in the nursery?”
His grin falters.
Brian. That's right.
His name is Brian.
“So weak,” I spit out, squaring my shoulders, raising my chin and walking right into his chest. Pushing hard with both palms, I shove him out of the way before I'm on my belly, chin cracking into the linoleum, the waistband of the back of my pants being yanked down.
I lose my vision. It flees, like their consciences.
And I elevate.
Four hands begin the dirty, brutal work they've come to perform as I stay quiet, hoping for Phillipa's appearance, then stopping myself. While she's not a training body, the push of hormones through these half-crazed lunks means no one is safe in their presence without a weapon.
Acquiescence is my weapon.
Elevation is my salvation.
For them to attack me here, with helpless infants in the room, means they are capable of anything. I detach myself from the worry, the pain, the anticipation…
The humanity.
The pain as they wrench my arm to flip me over pales in comparison to the bite I give myself, my own canines piercing my lip. We were taught to use self-inflicted pain as a grounding technique. The control one has over causing pain to oneself is preferable as a diversion from the even worse pain others inflict.
Is there truly a difference? Who knows.
But the psyche needs something to cling to.
I'm being dragged by the hair and the back of my shirt, the floor cold and hard as they pull me into my apartment, my heels banging into a kitchen chair. Lifted up and thrown like a rag doll on my couch, Brian opens his pants, showing a rock hard erection and a hazy pleasure in his eyes as he breathes hard. The back of his hand cracks against my cheekbone and I bite down harder, feeling my teeth touch each other through my lip.
I gather blood and saliva in my mouth and spit on his cock.
The act is intentional.
It will make what he does next hurt less.
Chapter 27
Callum
The second I press my finger on the door sensor I know something's wrong.
As the door clicks open, I see what's wrong.
While I want to shout her name, training kicks in and I pull my gun.
I aim.
I don't warn.
The bullet goes through the standing man's head like a stick through a marshmallow, his knees buckling as his body collapses, a marionette without a master holding it up. He crashes down on top of the man raping Kina, the force of his weight pulling the young blonde man off her, revealing a bloodied prick that juts up as Kina's knee angles as if she's in a marching band, thigh a flat expanse covered with torn cloth, the vision of their bodies startling, artistic, and sic
kening.
I grab the blonde by the hair and pull so hard I feel skin somewhere on his face tear. He screams until my hand goes around the back of his head and I jam the gun barrel into his ear, aiming carefully.
Not for his head.
For the joist in the wall.
I pull the trigger.
The bullet pierces his brain clean through, jamming in the thick support beam, which I know is wood. I only know because one of my training assignments was to learn the construction of every building.
This time, it came in handy. Second shot I’ve fired straight into a support beam.
Babies howl like wolves mourning their own. Kina stands, shuffling into the crib-filled room, her face blank. She's clearly elevating and God help me, I want to comfort her, but I know better.
Ruining the trance will bring all the pain.
Her mission is to comfort the littles.
I join her.
“Jay – get Jay,” she rasps, her voice brittle and hoarse, as if she screamed but no one came. I didn't hear a thing when I approached the building, so the incongruity of it is puzzling, touching, horrifying. Following her orders, I walk into the other room, where Jay is standing in his crib, pointing, red-faced, wailing, “Keen! Keen!”
I pick him up, holstering my gun at the last second, shaking my head to clear it.
He arches his back with such force I nearly drop him, but my reflexes kick in.
So do Jay's. His toes nail me in the balls.
“Oof,” I say, trying to filter out all the screaming, craning my neck to look through the doorway and check on Kina.
“Oof!” Jay says, kicking me in the balls again, giggling. His laughter makes Kina poke her head through, face a mask of fury, as if the toddler offends her.
“What's going on?”
“Nothing. What do you need?”
Her face goes blank again. I shift good old Jay onto my other hip and shield myself from further attack. Another toddler holds her arms out for me, her long, blonde curls like a princess in a fairy tale. Sad eyes with fat teardrops top a pouting mouth, the frown almost comical.