Chains and Memory

by Marie Brennan

  Which meant I had no chance to ask him whether I should be cautious about what I said around Neeya. Fortunately Guan got the conversation started by asking, “How is your case proceeding, Kim? Do you think the Supreme Court will agree to hear it?”

  “I hope so,” I said, aborting the bite I’d been about to take from my falafel pita. Partly because I didn’t want to talk with my mouth full, but more because the court case always made my stomach twist. “If they don’t, then the previous ruling stands, and that’s the one that says I’m a wilder.”

  “You aren’t,” Neeya said sharply.

  Her swift disagreement took me aback. Nor was I the only one; Julian cast her a sidelong glance, one I couldn’t read. “I hope they agree with you,” I said. “If I get classed as a wilder in legal terms, we all know what that will mean.” But that wasn’t why she’d said it, and we all knew it.

  Julian said, “Kim both is and isn’t a wilder. That’s the problem.”

  I thought of the dead zone around us, and the way I’d almost tried to shake Guan’s hand. “There’s three different ways to view it, and they don’t line up anymore. Not for me, anyway, and anybody else who goes through what I did. Legally, I’m in limbo. Biologically, I’m a wilder: I’ve got the Krauss rating of one, and, well.” I gestured at the empty tables. People weren’t even walking through the area; they were detouring to skirt the edges of the courtyard. “It isn’t just you guys they’re avoiding. The woman at the falafel place didn’t look me in the eye. She pushed my tray at me like she wished she had a ten-foot pole to do it with. The world sees me, and it sees a wilder.” One with Unseelie eyes.

  “But you aren’t one of us,” Neeya said.

  Well, at least she was refreshingly direct about it. “And that brings us to the third way. Socially. Culturally, even.” All three sets of eyes were on me now, making me uncomfortable: Julian’s familiar grey, Guan’s several shades darker, and Neeya’s violet. She avoided my gaze when I looked at her, which said louder than anything else that she really didn’t accept me as one of them. She wouldn’t even try for a staredown. “I wasn’t born with gifts; mine manifested when I was twelve. I wasn’t raised in one of the Centers. I don’t have your training, or any of the habits that come with it.”

  Guan posed his question in a deceptively mild tone. “Do you think of yourself as a wilder?”

  I thanked all the gods that he wasn’t the first person to ask me that question. My initial attempts to answer it had involved acquainting myself with the metaphorical taste of shoes. “I can’t answer that ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ It isn’t that simple, and my situation keeps changing, in all kinds of ways.

  “But here’s what I can say. I’ve got obligations now that I didn’t have before. I may not have your training or habits, but I’ve got to acquire at least some of them, for everybody’s sake. And if the world is going to treat me like a wilder—which it will, no matter what Congress or the Supreme Court says—then I’ve at least got to get to know you.”

  Neeya’s expression said she’d lick iron before she accepted me as any kind of kin. Given the kind of self-control they drilled into wilders, I had to assume she was deliberately flaunting her feelings at me—though it was all surface; on an empathic level, she was as buttoned-up as anybody. Guan, by contrast, was nodding. “Yes. The training more than anything, I think. People have certain expectations of what the Fiain can do, and they’ll expect you to match them.”

  I hadn’t thought of it from that angle. Now I winced. “Yeah. Gods help me if I’m walking down the street and, I don’t know, a golem starts running amok. I sure as hell can’t shatter an animation matrix at fifty paces.”

  “Shattering them is easy,” Guan said dryly. “But not advisable, unless you have something in place to contain the backlash.”

  His reply, so casually spoken, chilled my blood. I’d chosen the example at random, out of a movie I’d once seen. Never mind that it wasn’t likely to ever happen. If it did—or something similar—my response was likely to be conditioned by media and other foolish expectations. And I might end up causing unnecessary destruction as a result, just because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

  Everybody was so intent on shielding me to keep my gifts under control. I’d been thinking of it in terms of them blowing loose, like my brother’s had when he was dying of the psi-sickness—but I hadn’t thought about what would happen if I used them stupidly.

  “Can you teach her?” Julian asked, answering the question I hadn’t gotten a chance to voice, about whether it was okay to talk about this in front of Neeya. “Not animation matrices, of course. Not at first. But the things she needs to know.”

  Guan’s eyebrow lifted at Julian. “One suspects you could stand to be tested on your ability to manipulate matrices. How long has it been since you’ve practiced that?” Sitting next to Julian on the bench, I was close enough to hear his breath hiss out softly. Clearly the answer was, way too long. “But yes, I will see what I can do. For Kim, that is. For you . . .” He trailed off, looking speculative.

  Julian said nothing, but I felt him tense. He burned to become a Guardian, or at least a trainee; these months of inactivity had left him as restless as a cat in a carrier.

  “If you and Kim needed to learn the same things, I could manage it,” Guan said. “But I can’t teach you both at once.”

  The only reason Julian didn’t sag, I suspected, was because he was too disciplined to show his disappointment.

  Then Guan surprised us both by saying, “But I see no reason you can’t study with Neeya.”

  I almost laughed, seeing the way they turned to look at each other like startled birds. “She’ll be entering training tomorrow,” Guan said, “and she’ll be studying exactly the things you need to learn. Where her pedagogical skills fall short, I will assist, but in the meanwhile I’ll be free to devote my attention to Kim.”

  A grin spread across Neeya’s face. Then I felt it: a muffled tremor, just beyond the reach of my psychic hearing. A telepathic whisper, masked so that nobody but the recipient could hear it.

  Apparently she didn’t care much for Wilder Etiquette 101.

  “Neeya!” Guan said.

  His tone was still mild, but the rebuke was clear, and she flinched. “Sorry,” she muttered, not sounding very sorry at all. Whatever her actual age, I was beginning to get the impression she wasn’t very grown-up yet. The contrast with Julian was striking.

  Julian put his hand on her wrist—another surprise. “That sounds like a good plan,” he said to Guan. A smile touched his lips. “How soon can we start?”

  ~

  Julian would have walked back to FAR’s offices with Kim regardless, just for the companionship, but he also knew she would have questions. They were barely out of earshot when she said with a wry smile, “So . . . I’m guessing you know Neeya from before.”

  It still felt odd, talking to Kim about the Center. The system that raised wilders wasn’t any kind of secret, but Julian had resisted saying much about it at Welton, largely because of his experiences freshman year. Too many people asking prying questions, delving into his private life for no better reason than because they’d never had a chance to question a wilder. And while the basics were impersonal enough, the details became personal very quickly.

  But Kim needed to understand these things, and that led Julian to discover the other reason he’d never talked about the Center much: it was hard to put into words. He’d spent the first eighteen years of his life surrounded by people who knew the system and its effects firsthand, without need of explanation. Trying to explain it to Kim was like trying to explain walking. Ten thousand reflexes and assumptions he’d never thought about consciously before, and didn’t notice until someone pointed at one of them and asked, “What’s that?” He wondered ruefully how long it would take the two of them to unearth and work through everything he used to take for granted.

  He was getting distracted, his mind dancing around the task of explaining
Neeya. Julian considered a few framings, then said, “Do you remember me telling you about the creche?”

  Kim approached learning about his past with all the intensity she’d given to her college classes, which meant she forgot almost nothing. “That was where you lived before you were old enough to begin training. They keep you there until you’re seven or so, then shift you to the Center proper.”

  “Right. What I didn’t mention before is that when you shift to the Center, they pair you with an older kid — a ‘big brother’ or ‘big sister.’ Somebody who knows the place and can help you get adjusted.”

  “And you were Neeya’s big brother?”

  Julian nodded. “I was nine when she came in. We’ve known each other half our lives. I didn’t realize she was out already — ‘out’ meaning she’s finished training.”

  “I guessed that one on my own.” Kim grinned suddenly. “Makes her sound like a Regency miss. Having her Season in Washington, D.C.”

  It went both ways, the lack of familiarity. Kim’s interest had always been in the psychic sciences, divination above all, but she’d still attended ordinary schools before going to Welton. Her education had included subjects the Center never bothered with. Julian had only the vaguest sense of what the Regency was, and no idea what comparison Kim was making. But asking about things like that was even harder than explaining his own life.

  Possibly Kim guessed that, too, because she steered the conversation back to more solid ground. “Are they going to get in trouble if anybody finds out they’re training us?”

  “Guan, probably not. He’s supposed to teach wilders, after all—if not quite like this. Neeya, maybe . . . but since we’ll all be together anyway, nobody will know he isn’t teaching you and me both.” The plan would be exhausting for Kim; it required her to go straight from her internship to the practice sessions, unless she had to attend some meeting related to the Otherworld Act or her court case. Julian wished he could build a power reservoir for her, like the one he’d made for himself last fall, but they had to be crafted by the owner. And there were too many other things Kim had to learn first. She was learning as fast as she could, but there were limits. Especially when Julian had no idea how to teach her.

  They stopped at an intersection, waiting for the pedestrian sign to light, and both fell silent. Even with the buffer zone of people avoiding them, it felt too much like people might be listening in. By the time the walk signal came, another thought had come to Julian—and not a pleasant one.

  “You shouldn’t tell anyone about the practices, though,” he said. “Not for Guan’s sake, or Neeya’s. For your own.”

  Kim frowned at him. She must have been thinking the same thing about the crowds, because after a moment, her telepathic voice sounded in his mind. Why not?

  Speaking in shielded whispers in public was still a little rude, but not remotely as bad as Neeya pinging him at the table. He was still shocked she’d done that. To Kim he said, Because people will take it the wrong way. Guan’s a teacher at the Center. If they find out you’ve gone to him for training . . .

  They’ll think it means I need training, Kim finished. Of the sort the Center provides. Which I do, technically—but not in the way they think.

  She needed skills, more than control. But whether it was out of panic or cold-blooded pursuit of political ends, people would spin it differently.

  Mind to mind, he could feel the chill of fear in Kim’s thoughts. She had a sense of what the deep shield was like; he hadn’t been able to strip away his feelings about it when he gave her the key for triggering it on him. If Julian had believed in any kind of deity, he would have prayed she never had to experience it firsthand.

  And he would have prayed for the ability to make sure that never happened.

  They walked in silence the rest of the way, speaking only a brief farewell when they parted outside the building that housed FAR’s offices. Then Julian was at loose ends, yet again. He was fundamentally not used to having so much empty time, and so little to fill it with.

  He could go to the library and read up on magical theory in preparation for tonight, even if he had nowhere good to practice. Julian shoved his hands into his pockets and began walking.

  He hadn’t gone more than two blocks before his port buzzed against his fingers. He pulled it out, wondering who would be calling him. Kim, reminding him of something he’d forgotten? Guan, changing the plan for tonight? Neeya, hoping to see him without others around?

  None of the above. He thumbed the call open. “Robert. Is something wrong?”

  Even on the small screen of his port, he could see Robert’s surprise. “No. Why should there be?”

  “You’re calling me.” His former roommate had once pontificated at length about the limitations of video and audio, disdaining them as “poor substitutes for the genuine warmth of human interaction.” Julian was fairly certain that was a smokescreen for the truth: that Robert was simply bad at remembering to call anyone. Either way, it was still a surprise to find him on the other end of the line.

  Robert contrived to look offended. “Can I not call simply for the pleasure of your conversation? I am not telepath enough to reach you from here, and a written message is far too impersonal of a medium for what I have to say — which is that I have had some thoughts on the task you set me.”

  It was hardly a statement to put Julian at ease. He ducked into the pedestrian alley between two buildings, going far enough back that no one on the street would be able to easily overhear. “I didn’t set you any task.”

  “You most certainly did. I recall it distinctly: you told me about the deep shield — which, I should add, you might have done far sooner — I responded with suitable shock and horror, and you told me there was no alternative that would keep young wilders safe.”

  Julian controlled a wince. “Tell me you haven’t been looking for ways to break the shield.”

  “Of course not. Your expertise in such matters far exceeds my own — and besides which, there is no Fiain here I might study. Unless you come to Galway or, and this would be preferable, arrange to have me brought to where you are, I have nowhere to begin.” Robert’s image receded slightly, and Julian realized he was in a chair, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest in satisfaction. “No, I have been contemplating measures that might replace this abominable shield, so that future generations will not suffer its chains.”

  A flight of concrete stairs led up to an impersonal, grey-painted door. Julian sat on the bottom step, resisting the urge to drop his head into his hands. “Gods help us all. Tell me.”

  “Well,” Robert said. “I first attempted to calculate how many minders would be needed to maintain ordinary shields on a child of unusual strength, every waking and sleeping hour. Of course it was only a rough estimate — but I feel confident in saying the answer was, too many.”

  By Julian’s own estimate, it would require at least four: three working eight-hour shifts, in rotation with a fourth to allow for time off, backup in case of emergency, and so forth. Four if they were Fiain; if it were normal bloods, at least twice as many. And that was per child. He didn’t know how many Fiain were born in the United States every year — the number couldn’t be that high — but it hardly mattered. Nobody would pour out those kinds of resources for them.

  Robert had paused, giving Julian a chance to argue, and continued on when he did not. “Then I considered how one might construct a safe environment in which to house such a child, wherein their gifts might be allowed free rein, without harm to them. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that such an environment would have to be exceedingly bare. Completely so, in fact. And when I mentioned this to Liesel, she asked me if I had ever heard of something called a ‘Skinner box.’”

  “You brought Liesel into this?”

  “Whyever should I not? She knows a good deal more than I do about child development, which is to say she knows anything at all.”

  There was a note in his voice that Julian
recognized all too well. “Robert — how many people have you shared this with?”

  His gaze drifted away from the camera, toward something off-screen. He might as well have whistled to indicate innocence. “Kim’s tie to the Palladian Circle may have been cut, and strictly speaking this is not an issue that would help her —”

  ”Seven of you, then,” Julian said. The Wiccan Circle Liesel and Robert belonged to practiced ritual magic, but only on a casual level. They wouldn’t get far on their own. “Anyone else?”

  “I may have raised the question with some people here at the Ardcholáiste. In a general way, of course, naming no names or specifics.” Robert grew defensive. “Look you: if my father is going to trap me into attending classes here, as was always his preference, then I might at least get some use out of it.”

  Julian’s annoyance was fading. In truth, it wasn’t a bad idea. All his life, he’d been fixated on getting rid of the deep shield — but only for adults. Fiain fully grown and trained, ready to use their gifts at will. He’d taken the necessity of the shield itself as a fact of life, never considering that there might be alternatives.

  Nobody had ever found one. But back when the shield was developed, the psychic sciences had been far less advanced. And why would anyone look for a replacement method, when they had one that worked so well?

  That didn’t make it likely that one half-trained Irish sorcerer and a motley assortment of other psychics would stumble on a solution. There wasn’t any harm in them looking for one, though. “All right. I don’t know what a Skinner box is, but I can tell you that a lot of the early deaths, before the deep shield, were from self-inflicted pyrokinesis. Even a bare room won’t protect them from that.”