by Jerry
“What makes you think y-you can—”
“The answer to that question is ‘experience.’ As I told you at the outset, this project has been ongoing for thirty years. It has included thousands of people and involved substantial investments in infrastructure, up to the very highest corridors of power. I believe I can get away with this because everybody involved in this project always has, and it would take a rebellion far beyond your powers or mine to stop it. Now take a drink of water.”
“Oh, God.”
“Do what I say. It’s just water. No unadvertised substances to affect your reactions.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I have not lied to you yet. Hydrate. Get your breathing under control.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Good girl. Listen to me. We know that this has been traumatic. It’s possible that, later on, after you leave this facility, you might want to indulge in something alcoholic. In that event, you may use some of your stipend to go on a total bender, as approximately twenty-seven percent of our participants do. It’s wholly understandable. Or you may wish to go even harder. If you end up feeling that the rest of your life now offers no options beyond seeking total oblivion, or destroying yourself, then we have ample supplies of crack and meth and a staff of medical experts fully trained to instruct you in the techniques required to surrender the rest of your life to their habitual use. Our people can, if you wish, take you through one safe dose and let you go, or, as some past participants have requested, guide you all the way down to the comforts of rock bottom in one of the facilities we maintain for that purpose. But right now, water will do.”
“F-fuck you!”
“You need to internalize this, Steph: I have heard that many times, from any number of clean-cut young men and sweet young women before you. It will do you no good to keep on saying that, because it affects me not at all and does not change your predicament in the slightest. In the meantime, we must either move on to the next phase, or sacrifice the two innocents whose lives you have saved. Should I give the kill orders?”
“No! Don’t! I’ll cooperate!”
“Marlie and Ga-Heon are accordingly out of danger. See how simple that is? Now we move on to the next part of the survey. For the record, I am now handing you another sheet of paper, bearing graphic representations of five more individuals. Do you acknowledge receipt?”
“Oh, God.”
“Failing to answer the question a second time will have the same effect as drawing an X over all the outlines. Do you acknowledge receipt?”
“I . . . acknowledge receipt, fucker.”
“Will you please tell me the difference between these five humanoid outlines and the three you were provided before?”
“These . . . look like . . .”
“Trailing off does no good. Please finish the sentence.”
“Ch-children.”
“That is correct, Steph. In point of fact, these five outlines represent five existing individuals between ages four and fourteen. They may be of any nationality, any race, any gender, any religious background. To make things more interesting, I will tell you that one is an impoverished orphan living in a refugee camp who can hear the pounding drumbeat of war every night from the pallet she shares with four others. Another is the unsuspecting child of a billionaire who believes that the paid companions with whom he shares today’s expensive play are friends, and not operatives fully prepared to deliver him to the fate you might select. The three others are individuals of more middling circumstances, though of course of diverse backgrounds; all in all, a handful of lives that would never intersect in any other way, except in this moment when all five sit represented on the sheet before you.”
“And I have to d-decide which one’s going to die?”
“No. We don’t expect you to decree death for a child. Too many test subjects have fallen into complete paralysis at the very prospect.”
“. . . What, then?”
“You are to select two. One of those two will be blinded with acid, but will otherwise enjoy whatever opportunities are presented by life circumstances. Who knows, it might even be the billionaire’s son, who’s never going to want for anything, anyway. The other will be taken from home and delivered to a dark, airless room at a black site known to us, there to live as long as medical science can ensure his or her health, but never again allowed the company of another human being, rather to be doomed to an existence where the key question— Why? —will never be answered.”
“Oh, God.”
“If you select neither, or if you refuse, then all five will be abducted and delivered to sex traffickers. We have a particular dealer in mind. I could provide you with the details of the treatment they will receive under his stewardship, but you don’t need to put yourself through that. You just need to know that if you mark two figures with the X, the remaining three will avoid that fate entirely, and that one of your selected two will only suffer a disability with which many millions of people are able to function every single day. The path of lesser evil seems obvious, but again, a certain percentage of subjects who passed this way before you were unable to force themselves to make the selection, and so they chose hell for all five by default.”
“I can’t do it!”
“That is, as established, a possible outcome. In such a case, you will know for the rest of your life that what happened to all five was your fault. And we will make sure that, wherever you live, however far you attempt to run, you will receive regular photographic updates of how they’re faring.”
“I’ll kill myself first!”
“This will be among your options. Again, once we are done, if that is your desire, we will be happy to provide you with expert assistance as to methods and procedures. But it won’t affect what happens to these five. Your only means of saving three (four, really, because blindness is not all that bad compared to the greater threat that’s been made) is to provide your marks.”
“I f-fucking swear to God, I will k-kill you with my bare hands, someday.”
“A genuine possibility, Steph, but one outside the scope of this survey, and one that won’t affect this particular decision. You are running out of time. I think I should start the clock. You have thirty seconds to save three by condemning two. Starting now.”
“No, wait!”
“Twenty-five. Twenty.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Almost down to ten. Now. Nine. Eight.”
“FUCK YOU!”
“The subject is overwrought right now, but for the record, she has drawn the two X’s that were required, one on the figure furthest to the left and one on the figure in the center. Her decisions are made. She is two-thirds of the way through the survey and has only one section left to complete.”
“. . . No more. Please.”
“I see from the green light on my console that one child has been blinded, and . . . yes—that the other has now been taken into custody and is being delivered to her new life. Would you like to see the video evidence?”
“. . . no . . .”
“I promise you, Steph, this next part will the last bit, for today. And because it is the most difficult choice of the bunch, you will be provided with the greatest amount of prior intelligence.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Catatonia is one of your options, Steph. We understand that you might want it and we do have medical means of inducing it. But you might prefer the others I am empowered to offer.”
“Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anybody.”
“Of course you won’t. We can dispatch operatives to surveil and, if necessary, eliminate people from all walks of life, all over the globe; you think we can’t prevent you from trying to do something about what you know? Please. If it even occurs to you to open your mouth, we’ll know it. But you won’t. Most people who get as far as you have may suffer emotional problems and suicidal ideation, but they do know the difference between what’s feasible
and what’s not, and don’t make matters worse with futile gestures like going to newspapers that nobody reads anyway. They understand that going to the authorities is ridiculous, because we are the authorities—especially if they stick around to ask questions, because they are then told everything they need to know. Let me ask you another version of the same question I posed before. What do you want out of life? Money? Power? Influence? The chance to make a difference? You might qualify for all of that.”
“I j-just want to go home.”
“You’re almost there. You just have this last bit left, and once it’s done, you can either return to your life with a thousand dollars in your pocket, or you can join us and be drawn into decisions of even greater import: who lives, who dies, who succeeds, who fails, which economies rise and which ones fall, which injustices are righted and which are allowed to fester until they burst open, laying waste to entire regions with the heat of all that incubated corruption. By the time you’re thirty, you can be one of the people pulling the strings behind the scenes, someone richer than you ever dreamed of being, and I can promise that you will no longer feel what you feel now, not anymore. You can—”
“Eat me, you sadistic piece of shit, I just want it over!”
“Do you acknowledge receipt of this last sheet of paper?”
“Yes.”
“Please describe for the record what you see there.”
“Circles. One, two, three . . . ten circles.”
“Steph, those ten circles represent regional populations. Cities, countries. In some cases, hundreds of lives, in others, thousands or even tens of thousands of lives; places that represent entirely different cultures, creeds, and societies. They are residents of democracies, of dictatorships and theocracies, of places prosperous or damned by poverty. Nine of them will continue to bump along the way they have in recent times. The tenth will—”
“I pick one?”
“Yes, and that one will—”
“I’ve drawn my X.”
“I can see that. Do you want to know what’s going to happen there?”
“Won’t it make the news?”
“Of course. So will a lot of other catastrophic events. Without specific knowledge, you will never know which one was precipitated by your own X.”
“Then I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear a goddamned thing.”
“For the record, then, you’ve declined all post-verdict follow-up on the specifics of a decision that will negatively affect an entire regional population, out of acknowledgment that there is no way that dwelling on this intelligence could do you any good. Is that an accurate way to summarize your reasoning?”
“Yes, damn it. Yes!”
“That’s a wise coping mechanism.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“No, honestly, Steph—that’s precisely the reaction we wish to see by this point in the process. It’s been a very successful session.”
“Do I get to leave now?”
“With this understanding: that there will be a mandatory exit interview in forty-eight hours. If you have not committed suicide by then, you will be required to return. At that point, we will tell you the results of our evaluation and you will tell us whether your decision-making ability qualifies you for further sessions with this organization, with more decisions of increasing levels of consequence, for accordingly greater levels of remuneration. Before you go, I should mention that as an unadvertised result of this session, you will no longer have to complete course work in any of your classes this semester; we understand that the trauma suffered by many of our subjects does impact academic performance and can therefore guarantee full credit for all classes on your current schedule, at a 4.0 grade point average. If you do decide to continue your association with us—”
“Oh, fuck off. I get it. I get it. I’ve had all I can take of your goddamned face today.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can tell you that my superiors will be pleased with how you took control of the last part of the survey. They appreciate that kind of decisiveness.”
“They can get fucked, too.”
“I feel confident that the opportunities available to you will be significant.”
“I don’t want to hear that right now.”
“Should I arrange the appointment for your follow-up interview?”
“I may jump off a bridge on the way home. I don’t even want to live right now.”
“Will you promise to wait two days? Hear what’s being offered? Learn what other kinds of vital decisions need to be made? What sort of life you can have?”
“That’s what’s supposed to happen? I’m supposed to willingly give up what remains of my soul now, to join you evil shits?”
“Well, first you have to pick up your thousand dollars on the way out. You earned it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Two days, Steph.”
“Two days.”
“Yes.”
“To find out what other kind of relentless monster I get to be.”
“To be offered further involvement in this project, yes.”
“Fuck you.”
“And to qualify for substantial employment opportunities upon graduation. Will we be seeing you then?”
“Oh, God. I don’t want to be this person. Please don’t let me spend my life being this person.”
“Steph?”
“Please.”
“Steph. We do need to make this appointment.”
“. . . What time?”
A CATALOG OF STORMS
Fran Wilde
The wind’s moving fast again. The weathermen lean into it, letting it wear away at them until they turn to rain and cloud.
“Look there, Sila.” Mumma points as she grips my shoulder.
Her arthritis-crooked hand shakes. Her cuticles are pale red from washwater. Her finger makes an arc against the sky that ends at the dark shadows on the cliffs.
“You can see those two, just there. Almost gone. The weather wouldn’t take them if they weren’t wayward already, though.” She tsks. “Varyl, Lillit, pay attention. Don’t let that be any of you girls.”
Her voice sounds proud and sad because she’s thinking of her aunt, who turned to lightning.
The town’s first weatherman.
The three of us kids stare across the bay to where the setting sun’s turned the cliff dark. On the edge of the cliff sits an old mansion that didn’t fall into the sea with the others: the Cliffwatch. Its turrets and cupolas are wrapped with steel cables from the broken bridge. Looks like metal vines grabbed and tethered the building to the solid part of the jutting cliff.
All the weathermen live there, until they don’t anymore.
“They’re leaned too far out and too still to be people.” Varyl waves Mumma’s hand down.
Varyl always says stuff like that because . . .
“They used to be people. They’re weathermen now,” Lillit answers.
. . . Lillit always rises to the bait.
“”You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Varyl whispers, and her eyes dance because she knows she’s got her twin in knots, wishing to be first and best at something. Lillit is always second at everything.
Mumma sighs, but I wait, ears perked, for whatever’s coming next because it’s always something wicked. Lillit has a fast temper.
But none of us are prepared this time.
“I do too know. I talked to one, once,” Lillit yells and then her hand goes up over her mouth, just for a moment, and her eyes look like she’d cut Varyl if she thought she’d get away with it.
And Mumma’s already turned and got Lillit by the ear. “You did what.” Her voice shudders. “Varyl, keep an eye out.”
Some weathermen visit relatives in town, when the weather is calm. They look for others like them, or who might be. When they do that, mothers hide their children.
Mumma starts to drag Lillit on
home. And just then a passing weatherman starts to scream by the fountain as if he’d read Mumma’s weather, not the sky’s.
When weathermen warn about a squall, it always comes. Storms aren’t their fault, and they’ll come anyway. The key is to know what kind of storm’s coming and what to do when it does. Weathermen can do that.
For a time.
I grab our basket of washing. Mumma and Varyl grab Lillit. We run as far from the fountain as fast as we can, before the sky turns ash-grey and the searing clouds—the really bad kind—begin to fall.
And that’s how Lillit is saved from a thrashing, but is still lost to us in the end.
An Incomplete Catalog of Storms
A Felrag the summer wind that turns the water green first, then churns up dark clouds into fists. Not deadly, usually, but good to warn the boats.
A Browtic rising heat from below that drives the rats and snakes from underground before they roast there. The streets swirl with them, they bite and bite until the browtic cools. Make sure all babies are well and high.
A Neap-Change the forgotten tide that’s neither low nor high, the calmest of waters, when what rests in the deeps slowly slither forth. A silent storm that looks nothing like a storm. It looks like calm and moonlight on water, but then people go missing.
A Glare a storm of silence and retribution, with no forgiveness, a terror of it, that takes over a whole community until the person causing it is removed. It looks like a dry wind, but it’s always some person that’s behind it.
A Vivid that bright sunlit rainbow-edged storm that seduces young women out into the early morning before they’ve been properly wrapped in cloaks. The one that gets in their lungs and makes them sing until they cry, until they can only taste food made of honey and milk and they grow pale and glass-eyed. Beware vivids in spring for the bride’s sake.