by Proehl, Bob
“We’ll have to get pictures for you to hang up,” Avi says. “Some of your drawings, maybe.”
“You can send some from the old house,” Kay says, then winces. “The house,” she corrects.
“It’s okay,” Emmeline says. She presses down on the edge of the bed with her hand. She opens and closes the empty drawers of the desk. “I like it like this.”
“Is this her?” asks someone in the doorway. She’s older than Emmeline, with straight mouse-brown hair and a spatter of freckles across her chubby face. “I know I’m supposed to let her get settled, but I had a break between classes and I couldn’t wait!” The girl bounds across the room and hugs Emmeline, who stands and suffers it awkwardly before softening, placing her arms delicately around the girl’s waist.
“Emmeline,” says Sarah, “this is Viola Wilkerson. She’ll be your roommate.”
Viola releases Emmeline and turns to Avi and Kay. “Hi, I’m Viola,” she says. “I’m a thermic.” She says this the way someone might give her astrological sign. She holds out her hand to Kay, who recoils. The girl is crestfallen for a second, then shifts her attention to Avi. He takes her hand. It’s as warm as freshly baked bread. “Can I steal her?” she asks. She pivots back to Emmeline. “There are a ton of people waiting to meet you in the common room.”
“Why do they want to meet me?” Emmeline asks.
“Because you’re new, silly,” Viola says.
“You going to be okay?” Avi asks Emmeline. It’s been half an hour since whatever they saw in Central Park, but she’s fine now, or she’s remembered to look like she’s fine. Avi wonders if the brave face is for him or for Kay. He and Emmeline have been protecting each other from how scared they are, how much they’re each worried about what the other one is becoming. There was comfort thinking they had time to work it out, to find new selves and fit them together into something that could hold. It was a silly thought. Emmeline realized it sooner than Avi.
“I’ll be fine, Dad,” she says as Viola drags her away by the hand. It’s the first time she’s called him Dad rather than Daddy, and the lack of the last syllable feels like a dropped note, a skipped heartbeat.
Sarah is called away to deal with two students involved in some kind of psychic tussle, leaving Avi and Kay hovering awkwardly outside Emmeline’s room. Kay folds her arms around herself, pulled into a knot. The last time they visited Emmeline’s school for a teacher conference, standing in a hallway like this one, Kay’s hand twitched up every time a kid passed by, as if she wanted to touch them, pat them on the head, and reassure them they would be okay. She said she wanted more kids, then said the time was never right. The problem was that Avi was never right for it. He never committed enough to being the father of one child for her to make him the father of two.
“I’m supposed to meet my photographer,” he says, looking down the hall toward the elevators. “Carol sent someone from—”
“Go,” Kay says. “I’m going to find Emmeline and say good-bye.”
“You’re leaving?” Avi asks.
“I’m meeting someone about an apartment in an hour.”
“An apartment here?” Avi asks.
“I’m taking the job,” says Kay.
“What job?”
“The one Bishop offered,” she says. “There are already cases being brought against people who’ve come out as Resonant. Since your article.” Her look says this is all his fault. “He’s paying me to take them on.”
“This is what the comic books were about?”
“I gave my notice at work,” she says. “There’s a couple of stays of deportation I’m in the middle of, then I’m done.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kay shrugs to tell him it isn’t important. He isn’t. This is what the phone call in the park was about. He’s relieved it wasn’t an affair. He wants to hold on to all the blame. Even here at the end, agency has power.
“I’ll be back and forth a lot,” he says. “They’ll want me around as a media liaison.” He hasn’t talked to Bishop yet about what his role will be moving forward, but this seems likely. “I was going to take her to lunch afterward if you want to—”
“I’ve got apartments all day,” she says.
“Next time I’m in New York we can—”
“You should go meet your photographer,” Kay says. She puts her hand on his elbow, gives him a gentle shove.
“Right,” Avi says. “I hope it goes well.”
“Yes,” says Kay.
Avi steps toward her, unsure whether he’s offering a hug or a handshake. What happens is somewhere in between, a collision of bodies, arms squashed between stomachs, as clumsy as their first night together. They’re like magnets with the same polarity: pushed together by outside forces, they repel each other and stand, held apart.
The next week, Kay files divorce papers in Illinois. They never get around to signing them. It isn’t a priority, and the world changes too much for it to matter. In any way that truly counts, this is where their marriage ends.
The library of the headmaster’s quarters on the fifteenth floor had been like a home to Fahima. When she started at Bishop, she thought she was special because the headmaster had personally recruited her. She soon found out that Kevin Bishop spent most of his days away from the school, gathering new students. He had very little contact time with them after that except for occasional broadcasts into everyone’s head through the Hive, the Bishop Academy’s equivalent of a public address system. What got Bishop’s attention was her persistent and pointed questions on the nature of Resonance. Apparently most teenagers, when told they have incredible abilities and access to a globe-spanning psychic network, blithely accept that they can push the limits of what’s possible. Fahima was obsessed with figuring each ability out. She analyzed her fellow students like math problems. How could a body produce superhuman levels of energy without consuming massive amounts of fuel? If someone’s ability caused permanent physical change, was that ability constantly engaged, or did the initial manifestation result in a new base or resting state? The human body was a machine like any other, and all around her she saw late-model Chevettes racing like Ferraris. Something didn’t add up. She was angry that none of the teachers had answers for how Resonance worked or even seemed to care. Would knowing change anything? they asked. Of fucking course, Fahima shouted. After Fahima derailed Mr. Duncan’s Energy Manipulation class with a barrage of questions, he sent her to Bishop’s office, ostensibly as a punishment. Instead, it became the first of many bull sessions held weekly in that office, then among the old wood and soft leather of Bishop’s library. At some point, he started drinking martinis during their meetings, sipping as he pondered whatever paradox she brought up to the top floor with her that week. Eventually, he offered her one.
As the elevator deposits her on the top floor, Fahima hears music coming from within, the complex guitar wail of a Prince album. Bishop’s record collection tends toward classical, with a particular affection for mid-twentieth-century Russian composers, but he also has a shelf full of funk, soul, and rhythm and blues records and is a religious Prince fan. “Part of the American songbook,” he told Fahima once, “Darling Nikki” grinding away on the speakers. It’s an aspect of his charm, an effortless, unassuming cool. One of the myths of cool is that it involves not caring when it actually requires very deep caring. Bishop chooses objects and ideas precisely and loves them with devotion.
She knocks and lets herself in. Bishop is lying on the couch, reading an old comic book. On the cover, a scantily clad woman with her spine impossibly twisted fires energy bolts out of her fist at a shadowy figure.
“Is that Patrick’s new syllabus?” Fahima asks.
“Did you ever think about the fact that superheroes showed up in the culture around the same time Resonants did?” Bishop asks. “OtherMan was created seven years before I was. And t
hen the flood of them in the sixties, when our numbers started to rocket.”
“You weren’t created,” Fahima says.
“Before I became?” Bishop says. “How do you talk about it?”
“Before I resonated,” she says.
“Well, yes,” he says. “But you had context.”
“I had you.”
“We had no idea, when it happened,” Bishop says. “It felt like being born as something completely new.”
“You’re feeling philosophical,” Fahima says.
“It’s that kind of day.”
“I brought treats,” Fahima says, holding up her bag. She sets it on the coffee table and extracts a bottle of gin, then one of dry vermouth. She takes a metal flask out of the bag. It’s wide at the base and has a thin neck, and the silvery metal surface flows like liquid. She pours in five counts of gin, then one count of vermouth. She takes the bottle by the neck and begins swirling it.
“You could be curing cancer,” Bishop says.
“Where’s the fun in that?” She pours out two glasses of ice-cold gin. “Fuck. Forgot the olives.”
“We’ll make do,” Bishop says. He picks up the drink closest to him, raises it. “I’m glad you came by.”
“Feels like a day to celebrate,” she says. “It’s been a long time coming. And it’s time we talk about what happened with the girl.”
He glances up from his drink, directly into Fahima’s eyes. He’s older than he looks. After the liberation of Europe at the end of World War II, he toured the camps. His wartime work with the Office of Scientific Research and Development earned him some favors. “I knew I had become something different,” he told Fahima. “I needed to see firsthand what people did to those who were different.” He never told her specifics. He said any telling made it less than what it was. But she’s watched a look settle into his face that said he was back there, seeing it all again. Something about Emmeline Hirsch triggers that look.
“I never thanked you for building the cell downstairs,” he says. “The inhibitor is a piece of genius. Did it come to you in a dream?”
“More or less,” Fahima says.
“It’s strange when something comes along you didn’t know you needed. I’m thinking of having you build one for me in my house up in Maine. As a quiet room. A respite. Are there negative effects?”
“I wouldn’t keep anyone in there permanently,” says Fahima.
“Keeping Owen Curry locked up isn’t a permanent solution anyway. But I’m tired of permanent solutions.” He gives her a painful, tight smile that reminds Fahima how much of his story Bishop hasn’t told her. He leans forward and sets his glass down on the table. “So let’s talk about the girl.”
“We should talk about the thing in the Hive,” says Fahima.
“I’m more concerned about Emmeline Hirsch,” Bishop says.
“She’s a sweet little kid,” Fahima says.
“You’re giving me opinions,” Bishop says. “Start from what you know.”
Fahima sighs. When she was his student, she was so easily cowed by him. She used to wonder if he was using his ability against her, bringing her down a notch. He swore he’d never do that to her. He pushed her to think deeper, work harder. Remove anything but facts so you can see the thing clearly, he told her. Start from what you know.
“She’s an early bloomer,” Fahima says. “But her abilities haven’t manifested in the real world yet.”
“Any sense of what her ability is?” Bishop asks.
Fahima thinks of the file she has on Emmeline. Report cards and school forms. Teacher evaluations, a psychological assessment. She thinks of the way the girl’s Hivebody manifested, a stack of layered images. She remembers thinking it was as if the girl called in future versions of herself for help. None of this amounts to anything definite. At most, there’s an indication of a prescience, an eeriness about the girl.
“Not yet,” she says.
“Keep eyes on her,” he says. “And keep me updated.”
“Why all the interest in this one?”
Bishop shrugs. “What she did in the Hive was impressive.”
“What she did was impossible,” Fahima corrects. “But you were looking for her before you knew what she could do.”
“The girl is powerful,” he says. “She’s demonstrated the ability to manipulate Hivematter, which is within my area of interest. I have thoughts about her, but I don’t know anything.” He sips his drink, purely for effect. “Is that enough for you for now?”
“It’s all I’m getting, right?”
“I trust you to handle it,” he says. It’s Bishop code for I will continue to monitor you very closely and possibly without your awareness. “You want to ask me about the abscess.”
“You knew what it was,” Fahima says.
“I have thoughts on that, too.”
“You need to share them,” she says.
“I don’t need to do anything,” says Bishop. “The Hive is a special place. It’s what unites us, connects us to where we draw our abilities from. Without it, we’re a scattered collection of accidents. We’re a coincidence rather than a people.”
“So no one gets to know you built it,” Fahima says.
“Most of them don’t need to know,” he says. “You know. Patrick knows, and Sarah.”
“What if you can’t control it anymore?” Fahima asks. “What if someone else can build things like that abscess in there? The Hive could be dangerous.”
“The Hive will always be safe,” Bishop says. “We built it to be inviolable. If someone was able to manipulate it, I’d know.”
“Someone did, and you didn’t know,” says Fahima.
“We saved the girl, Fahima,” he says. “Take the win. Today’s not about that.” He looks down onto the street. People are gathering on the sidewalks, lining up.
“You should be out there with them,” says Fahima.
“Today’s not about me either,” he says. “Come to the window. It’s about to start.”
They forgot to feed Owen Curry this morning. His stomach grumbles and growls, and the emptiness there feels like the null, but not enough. Not nearly. An echo of a roar. Shadow instead of void. The almost of it makes the lack worse.
When the door slides open, he’s sure it’s the Islam bitch with his slops. Everything they feed him is so fucking healthy when what he wants is grease and fat. Vegetables leave him full but never sated. He wants to rip into food with his hands. Tear and rend.
But it’s not her or the blonde. Whoever the fuck it is isn’t carrying a tray. Pressing his face hard against the glass, Owen can see his visitor. He’s tall, lanky. His face is blurred like a television screen full of static. Owen’s heart leaps.
“You came,” he says.
“I told you I’d come for you, Owen,” says his friend. “Did you lose your faith?”
“I couldn’t hear you,” Owen says, clawing at his temples. “They put me under these lights, and you weren’t in my head anymore.”
“I was always there, Owen,” his friend says. He flips off the green lights. Then he punches in a key code, and the glass slides back. Owen can’t believe it. He’s afraid to step through the opening. He summons his courage and crosses the threshold, into the hallway.
“I’m going to null them all,” he says. “I’m going to wipe out this whole fucking building.” He reaches into the part of himself where the null lives and gets ready to let it out, all of it this time. He’ll null the entire world. There’s a stabbing pain in the middle of his head. Brain freeze times a thousand. It drops Owen to his knees, and he can feel the null pulling away from him, shriveling like a scared animal.
“Not. Yet,” says his friend. “I have a sentimental attachment to this place. And if you’re going to be my sword, you need to remember who holds the hilt.” Owen he
ars the words wrong and has to sort them back. What he hears initially is be my dog. What he hears is who holds the leash.
“I’m sorry about the church,” Owen says, sounding like a whiny child even to his own ears. “I know you told me First Corinthians. But there was a girl there who’s like us. And I thought, He wouldn’t want me to kill our own. But I was so hungry.”
“I know what you thought, Owen,” says his friend. “But I need you to trust. Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” Owen says. I love you, he thinks. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop sniveling,” says his friend. “We don’t have time. There’s an opportunity to get you out, and we have to take it. They’re distracted. It’s a big day for them. For you, too. Today everyone walks in the light. But Owen.” He grabs Owen by the chin, his grip strong but fluid. “Disobey me again and I’m going to hurt you.”
“How am I going to get out?” Owen asks. He assumes there is security, armed guards ready to shoot him dead.
“Up the elevator and out the front door,” says his friend. He holds the outer door open. “Fall in with the other children. Speak to no one. When you get the chance, peel off from the crowd. I’ll be with you. To guide you.” He steps to the side to let Owen pass. As Owen squeezes by him, out into a cluttered lab, he tries to make out his friend’s face in the shaft of light coming through the door. It’s a mask of flat skin over the front of his head, churning like the surface of a liquid, beneath which something swims in slow, irregular circles.
In the immediate aftermath of the articles in the Chicago Tribune and The Atlantic and the resulting television coverage, the whole of Bishop’s student body gathered in the Hive to decide whether the school should stay hidden. Headmaster Bishop had strong-armed into all of their heads to advise caution, and the faculty had already made their feelings known. But they all insisted the decision fell to the students, who they knew would do the right thing. There was suspicion that if the will of the students didn’t align with the wishes of the teachers, the latter would win out. Democracy suspended, martial law imposed. It was a classic adult move to give the illusion of choice. Still, the students went forward as if it were all in good faith. They milled about, an informal meeting, waiting to be called to order. This was all new to them. They understood democracy as a concept, but no one had given any thought to the dull mechanisms it required.