by C. A. Gray
Nancy met me just as I exited the set into the newsroom. Her face looked grim, and also sort of sympathetic at the same time.
“Kate.” She said my name gently. That’s what got my attention: Nancy was not a gentle person. I recoiled.
“What’s the matter?”
She didn’t answer me right away, but she stepped aside so I could pass.
“You’ll want to return to your desk before you leave for the day.”
I hesitated, looking at her face, and felt something in my already queasy stomach seize into a vicious knot. I didn’t have any premonition about what would await me when I arrived at my desk, but I couldn’t stand the suspense.
When I arrived, though, my desk looked exactly the way I had left it: a half-drunk cup of tea, a few sticky notes, a powered down net screen. I woke it back up, wondering if it was something in my inbox that she was so anxious for me to see.
That was when I saw it: a comm from the government.
“Miss Kathryn Brandeis: We regret to inform you that your fiancé, Will Anderson, has suffered a fatal accident. He was pronounced dead on the scene this afternoon at 5:32 Eastern Time. We are sorry for your loss.”
Chapter 6: Kate
I stared at the comm, unable to process what it said.
“Miss Kathryn Brandeis… your fiancee, Will Anderson… pronounced dead…”
I looked at my comm history. The most recent message before this one was the one from Will.
“Found more info. Tell you tonight.”
What hit me first wasn’t the grief—there would be time enough for that later.
It was fear.
Nancy knocked on my open door, and I jumped.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Kate?”
“No,” I answered mechanically.
“Can I call someone to come and get you? You shouldn’t drive right now, you know.”
Drive. Was it a car accident? They didn’t specify. I’d just assumed.
“No,” I said again.
“You shouldn’t be alone tonight—”
Abruptly I stood up, powered off my net screen, and grabbed my shoulder bag as I brushed past Nancy. I didn’t bother to answer her.
“Kate!” she called after me, anxiously.
But I barely heard her.
I arrived at my apartment without knowing where I was going. As soon as I entered, I fell to my knees on my kitchen floor, eyes closed, clutching my stomach.
Will!
An ache throbbed in my chest. He wouldn’t be able to help me anymore. He’d never be able to help me again; no one could.
I was on my own now.
I opened my eyes and looked around my kitchen, at the polished granite countertops, the deep mahogany cabinets, and the appliances of brushed stainless steel.
Flash.
The gleaming architecture disappeared. Instead I saw the water stains on the walls; the cabinets looked like they were about to fall apart, and black mold crept through the cracks and crevices of the countertop and sink and walls.
The place looked like it ought to be condemned.
Then it was over. My beautiful kitchen returned, state-of-the-art and looking like something out of a decorating magazine. I started to tremble.
I suddenly knew it would only be a matter of time before I’d slip up and reveal myself as a rebel—like Maggie had.
Like Will had.
I had to get out.
With a surge of desperation, I flung open the closet where I kept my empty suitcase. I yanked it out with too much force and stumbled backwards.
Only I didn’t have a clue what sorts of items to pack when I had no idea where I was going or how long it would take to get there. I assumed I’d have to do what Maggie did, and leave the country. But where would I go? New Estonia?
I threw in some warm clothes, and a lot of underwear, dashing back and forth between my bedroom and the hall, carrying one or two items at a time. I grabbed a framed photo of Will and me by my bedside, and caught a glimpse of our smiling faces by accident: my long dark hair and blue eyes and wide grin beside Will: a head taller than me, fair-haired and handsome. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.
I tossed it face down in the suitcase so I wouldn’t have to look at it again, but it was too late. I doubled over on the carpet, racked with sobs.
Should I give Nancy some excuse for my disappearance? I suddenly wondered. To avert suspicion?
I could tell her I needed a vacation. That would probably work. Clearly I had good reason, after Will. They wouldn’t start looking for me for weeks.
I powered up my net screen, and wrote her a comm: “I don’t know how functional I am. Going away for awhile. Promise I’ll contact you when I can get my head on straight. Thanks for everything. Kate.” I stared at the screen for a minute before I hit send, wondering if I’d somehow given anything away, trying to spot any possible double meaning in my own words.
Just then, someone pounded on my door. I jumped, and my heart leapt straight into my throat. I hit send without another thought.
“Miss Brandeis?” called a voice I didn’t recognize on the other side. As quietly as I could, I tiptoed to the peephole and peered out: two men stood on my doorstep wearing gray suits and badges identifying them as government agents. One of them reached forward to pound on the door again, and I leapt back, creeping away.
I knew what they were doing here. Will must have been branded an EOS, and I was listed in the database as “next of kin.” They wanted my story—but most of all, they wanted to know if I was involved.
I had maybe a few minutes before they tried the back door. This took care of the packing issue: I had no time to pack anything.
There was an alley just behind my apartment. I could escape without being seen… as long as I moved now.
Knock, knock, knock. “Miss Brandeis?”
Right now.
Chapter 7: Jackson MacNamera
It was the fourth day of my week-long trip across the Atlantic Ocean. The sky dawned dark and stormy, and the other members of the crew seemed on edge, as if waiting for the deluge.
The waves went from choppy to violent, and our relatively small cargo ship pitched so aggressively that boxes and crates slid on the deck. Spray soaked me until my clothes clung to my body.
“Lower the sails!” cried one crewman named Jeremy. I could see the whites of his eyes: he was terrified.
Then, all at once, the clouds broke. Water from the spray of the sea, water from the sky, the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder—our ship might as well have been a toy.
I felt my heart pounding in my chest and my breath came fast; I wanted to laugh with the thrill of it. I felt alive. My vision widened, taking in the chaos.
“All hands on deck!”
The voice belonged to an officer named Mike. In response, the crewmen scurried to their various positions, hoisting and pulling and knotting and swearing. They were obviously all in the throes of panic, but they were trained for situations like this. Their bodies automatically knew what to do.
But I was not a sailor—I was an ice fisherman by trade. Without a direct order, I would only be in the way. So I watched, ready to spring into action as soon as I saw an opportunity.
Suddenly, I heard a colossal crack, and a blinding flash of light. My eyes darted to the starboard side of the ship: a mast had been struck by lightning. The sailor named Jeremy tried to scramble out of the way as it fell to the deck, but he kept slipping; he couldn’t move fast enough. I saw the path of the wind around the mast, catching the still half-lifted sails. I saw gravity pulling it down to the deck. I saw where Jeremy would fall. If nothing changed, the mast would catch him across the center of his spine, cracking it in half.
All my senses sharpened upon the mast, the air around the mast, and Jeremy—shutting out all else. I sprinted across the slick surface of the deck. Somehow my feet retained their traction, and my
arms instinctively flew up to my shoulders as I slid into position. A split second later, I caught the mast before it could hit Jeremy. Concentrating with all my might, I pivoted and heaved it to his right. It fell harmlessly on the deck with a great crack.
When it was over, my field of vision widened again to take in the rest of the crew and the storm, searching for anyone else who might need my help. But the lightning left us alone after that, and I couldn’t be of much use adjusting sails or moving cargo.
I glanced back down at Jeremy, who hadn't gotten to his feet yet. He still lay panting, gaping up at me in shock. I knew what he was thinking.
Who—or what—are you?
A few hours after the storm had passed, the crew settled in for whiskey and poker to wind down from the terrifying and physically grueling day. I’d never been big on social gatherings, though—mostly because I could never figure out what I should and shouldn’t say. So instead I meandered to the prow of the ship by myself, flipping a crate upside down to use as a seat.
The water was black except for where it reflected the light of the moon and the stars, and the waves, finally calm, now lapped at the edge of the ship gently.
There was something primal about the sea. That was why I felt drawn to it. In moments like this one, it gave us the illusion of control… but this afternoon proved we are always at its mercy.
Long before I actually heard the shuffle of footsteps or saw the long shadow approach me from behind, I felt the disturbance in the currents of the air behind me.
“I was wondering how long it would take you,” I said to Jeremy, without turning around.
There was a long pause. Then Jeremy said, “You saved my life.” He sounded more accusing than grateful.
I didn’t respond to this. I just turned around and watched him, waiting for him to ask what he’d really come to find out.
“You were on the other side of the ship,” he began. “How did you get there so fast? And besides that, how did you catch a beam that heavy without it crushing you, let alone throw it off of me?”
“Do you really want to know?” In my experience a lot of people didn’t.
“You’re gonna say adrenaline or something,” Jeremy muttered to himself. “I’ve seen adrenaline make a man do superhuman things. But that was… something else.”
“Adrenaline was part of it,” I admitted. “But not all.” I waited for him to ask.
Finally he said, annoyed, “All right, I give. What was it then?”
“Training,” I told him. I turned back around, looking out across the dark waters. Then I clarified, “Mental training.”
Another long pause. “What are you, some kind of—mystic?”
I smiled, not bothering to turn back around. Grandfather got that question from strangers all the time. They usually meant it as an insult. So did Jeremy—but in an odd way, it made me proud that I resembled Grandfather so much. I tried to remember how Grandfather responded to that question when it was put to him.
“Depends on what you mean by mystic,” I told him. “Back in Iceland, where I’m from, I know a guy who can hold his breath under water for eight minutes. He can dive about four hundred feet on a single breath. No oxygen tank.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is with enough mind control,” I told him. I reached out and grabbed another crate like the one I was sitting on, turning it upside down too. I pulled it right up next to me, like an invitation. Jeremy approached, but he pulled the crate a bit further away from mine before he sat down. Like he didn’t want to get too close.
He said bracingly, “So what, you’re saying with some woo-woo meditation stuff, your body doesn’t need oxygen anymore?”
“Oh no, it still needs oxygen,” I corrected him, facing him again. “But you can temporarily reroute things so it doesn’t need as much of it.”
Jeremy quirked one eyebrow up, but now he looked a little more intrigued. “‘Reroute things’?”
“I’m not a science guy. I can’t explain the details,” I said. “But we have more voluntary control over our bodies than most of us realize. We just have to tap into it.” Then I asked, “Have you ever been to Frjósöm before?” That was the rural village in Iceland where I’d lived about half my life, when I wasn’t attending school in Reykjavik, the capitol.
Jeremy nodded. “Sure.”
“You know the village chief, Sophus?”
“Heard his name.”
“Know anything about him?”
“Not really.”
“Well,” I said, “The first time I ever met him, I was eight. I was with my aunt and uncle, and we strayed into dangerous territory, occupied by a rival clan trying to take over Frjósöm. Three men came after us. One of them had a spear. My uncle was pleading for our lives and my aunt and I were crying—and then suddenly, out of nowhere, Grandfather appears. He’s this frail old man, and there’s one of him and three of them, but he wrenched the spear away and beat them all senseless in like three seconds.”
“So what? He knows martial arts,” said Jeremy.
“One unarmed seventy-year old man against three armed guys in their prime? You think that’s all fighting technique?” I stopped, staring off into the night sky. I remember the feeling I had that day when those three attackers ran off and we were left standing in front of Grandfather. I knew then that my whole life was about to change.
“Over time, Sophus took me for the grandchild he never had, and made me his apprentice. He taught me that our brains take in much more information than they can consciously process. Anyone can learn to tune in and gain access to that extra information, because it’s there for the taking. Then, and only then, can we truly perceive reality as it is, and not as we’ve been conditioned to think it is.
“He taught me that the missing link between our physical bodies and our awareness is our minds. With training, the connection between our bodies and our consciousness becomes stronger. Then, abilities like his would arise as a side effect.”
“Well,” Jeremy murmured at last, “That don’t make much sense to me. But however you did it, I’m indebted to you just the same.”
I shrugged, and suppressed a smile. He hadn’t wanted the answer after all. “No problem.”
The ship tilted gently from side to side, and we heard a burst of laughter coming from the poker hall down below the deck.
“You ain’t no sailor,” Jeremy observed as he stood up. “What are you going to the Republic for?”
I turned away from him and fell silent for a long time. At last I said, “For my mother’s funeral.”
“Oh.” Jeremy coughed and I heard him shuffle his feet. Then he said gruffly, “Think I’ll go and join the poker game.”
I nodded and let him leave without protest. I was glad for the solitude. I turned back to the sea, staring out over the water and thinking about my mom—all I really knew about her came from my Aunt Vivien, my mom’s sister.
“Your father died in a boating accident when you were a year old,” she’d told me when I was eight. “Then she married a man… who…”
Uncle Patrick interjected, “Who was a worthless piece of—”
“Patrick!” Aunt Vivien scolded him, and went on, “who didn’t want children.”
“Who would beat you as soon as look at you,” Uncle Patrick muttered.
“So,” Aunt Vivien went on, giving him a pointed look, “for your happiness and… safety, your mom sent you to live with us when you were very small.” She paused. “Do you remember the United States at all?”
I thought I did sometimes, in glimpses and snippets of memory, but I was never sure if they were real or imagined.
“If the guy my mom married was such a jerk, why didn’t she just leave him?” I’d asked.
Aunt Vivien sighed. “I ask myself that all the time, love. But there is something in the psychology of an abused woman that I don’t understand myself and can’t explain. It’s like an addiction.
”
“Variable reward,” muttered Uncle Patrick sagely.
“Oh, shh,” Aunt Vivien hushed him. “He doesn’t need to know about all your theories—”
“It’s true,” Uncle Patrick shrugged. “Sometimes she gets affection and sometimes she gets a beating, and it’s not knowing which it’ll be is what keeps her coming back. It’s like that experiment of the pigeons pecking at a disc—”
“So he beat my mom too?” I interrupted.
Aunt Vivien hesitated, but Uncle Patrick said firmly, “Yes. Undoubtedly.”
“Reading between the lines of her letters, I’d say… probably,” she’d hedged, her voice soft.
Over the years my mother had sent occasional letters. She’d mentioned that the United States was now the Republic of the Americas, and told us that the new government was wonderful. She was better off than she’d ever been before.
No mention of my stepfather except in passing.
“Your uncle and I have been saving money for you ever since you came to us, Jackson,” my aunt told me. “And when you are a grown man, when you’re old enough that your stepfather can no longer hurt you, your uncle and I will send you back to the Republic.”
I was startled. “What? Why?”
“Because it’s your home,” said Uncle Patrick.
“No it isn’t, this is my home!”
“Shh, shh,” Aunt Vivien had consoled me, “it won’t be for a very long time yet. But the Republic sounds like the land of opportunity, Jackson, the land of milk and honey! Anything is possible there. We want you to be able to live any life you choose.”
“You can come back here if you want to,” Uncle Patrick cut in, “but if you do, we want it to be your choice. There you can go to college and make money and build a life for yourself. Here… well, you already know what Frjósöm can offer you. The life of a fisherman is hard and dangerous. We’ve held far too many memorials for those at sea. You could of course move to Reykjavik instead… but compared to the Republic, that’s nothing.”
I fell silent. Presently Uncle Patrick went back to reading, Aunt Vivien to knitting.