Hypersubjects

by Ainsley Komper

  “Does she leave a sign in your perceptions? I mean, when you think she is manipulating you.”

  “Yes, she does. It is like a weird aftertaste, a mixture of metal and citrus.”

  They both laughed.

  “I am serious. Think about it. Look for her signature a few moments ago and other times when you agree with her about something.”

  Thiago heard Mercy calling out for him. Ciana had set up the table for dinner and all of them shared a few tapas. Taran seemed to be the most enthusiastic on the bunch with Mercy while there is a clear tension in the air.

  “Are we going to talk about the list?” Said Braith.

  “We can’t go anywhere near that list.” Ciana answered

  “If they are aware we have that list, they will be ready for us.”

  “The people on the list are like us. They are all in danger. You were both on that list.”

  Ciana and Mercy looked at each other.

  “Listen, Braith, I know it is lonely up here and that you want to feel stronger by bringing more people in. That is why I brought lovely Thiago.”

  “I don’t care about feeling lonely, I care about the people in that list. They don’t know their days are numbered and we can warn them. If you know that someone is going to die, how can you sit there without telling them, all calm and quiet?”

  “So, what do you propose?” Lark asked.

  “There are a few here in Spain, we could start by contacting them.”

  “What about the ones who are not in the country? They could track us if they are on guard.” Said Lark.

  “We have a hacker in our team. He could help us to mask our IP address or make the phone call untraceable.” Braith said.

  They all looked at Taran.

  “I can’t. My knowledge is not that great.”“Braith, can we speak outside?” Said Lark.

  “No.” Mercy replied. “Tell us what you are planning. I am sick of all this paranoia. We are safe here.”

  “Are you going to force me to tell you? Fine! I want to tell Braith that now I know that you are manipulating us. You did it this morning during the vote, you are doing it now with Taran because he knows how to do what Braith just asked. Oh, and you are trying it again.”

  “How can you know?” Asked Braith,“I found my own citrus oak flavour.”

  Lark left the table and Braith went after him.

  Ciana tried to go but Mercy stopped her.

  “Why don’t we finish our feast? Let them talk and we can all discuss this later in a more civilised way.”

  For a few moments, Thiago felt confused about being in the middle of such a particular bunch. The conversations were like riddles to him, but he felt compelled to keep quiet. It was Mercy’s presence the one who fulfilled him with joy and inner peace. He had left his friends, girlfriend and job behind with lame excuses as he knew that everything will be alright if Mercy was by his side. Later on during the night, she invited him to watch the stars. Taran wanted to come as well but Mercy told him they need time to bond and start working. Once by the mountain slope, he asked her what type of work they will be doing.

  “We need to work in your condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “We all have conditions. Nobody here is normal and I know you have something in your vision.”

  “Oh, that. I mean, there is no cure for that. The doctors told me I have to live with it forever but it is not that bad.”

  “The good thing for us five is that we have learnt to control our conditions so they can actually help us.”

  “I don’t see how this one can.”

  “I don’t know either. When I met you, I felt instantly something that I only feel in people like us.”

  “Feel?”

  “Part of my condition allows me to feel people’s emotions and go through what is happening inside them. I know it may have been a mistake to pick you, to be honest, but it is all part of my own process, of my learning. Would you help me?”

  “So, what do you want to do? I don’t even know how you could work with a condition like mine.”

  “I read once about an acting exercise where two actors have to look into each other’s eyes for a period of time. They cannot avoid themselves, eyes locking on eyes.”

  “It sounds intense.”

  “I’ve never done it before but I think it would help us to connect.”

  They both sat on the ground following the exercise, no words allowed, no deviating the eyes from each other, just there breathing and blinking. After a few moments, Thiago felt a surge of energy flowing towards him and tried to back off from her, but she prevented him from doing so. It was too late to break the bond between them, an invisible grip so weird he had not ever experienced it before. He could see so much into her despite using his actual eyes to only wander over the features of her face. In that moment, Thiago knew all the pain she went through over the years, the imprisonment at the institute and the current process she was living by dealing with her new-found abilities. He also experienced the immense love Mercy felt for her parents, especially her dad and also the happiness brought to her by friends like Natalia but most important, how peaceful she felt when surrounded by animals, by nature. It was a feeling like no other as they could just be in a peaceful and accepting manner. They filled her with balance, even in difficult times like the current ones. It was that love the one who took her to sabotage bullfights and she was just starting. The bond between worked both ways and if she was an open book, so was he. While going through her feelings, Thiago could also perceive she was going through his, flicking images from his happy childhood and troubled teenage years which started with the terminal illness of his dad. Growing up in higher/middle-class Madrid was not as easy to deal with. The pressure to achieve goals above average, to excel beyond your peers, choosing the right profession, develop it and trying not to cover each of your mistakes, magnify your successes, stay clear of corruption, reciprocate appropriately to your family. The truth is that nobody was really putting pressure but himself, nobody was ashamed of his snow vision condition, nobody would ever have something really bad to say about his boring, predictable and calculated life. Mercy saw in that little tour a person with a desire to break free of himself, terrified of jumping and crashing instead of flying. In a dreamlike state, she met him inside his subconscious landscape but to him, he was in hers.

  “I am sorry to take you just like that.”

  “Don’t be. It is difficult to remember being so happy.”

  “I meant, I think I saw something in you, something we have in common but I cannot find it.”

  “You mean the condition in my eyes.”

  “I thought it was more. I felt an energy, a pain, a struggle that I have only felt in people like me.”

  “People like your friends.”

  “Exactly, yes.”

  “Have you connected like this with them?”

  “Not like this but in other ways, while I was sleeping at the institute.”

  “Why not?”

  “I am scared they will see too much inside of me. I don’t mind with you because we barely know each other.”

  “So then how can you possibly know I am not the same if you haven’t connected with them like we did?”

  “I don’t know, I just… I am new at this. There is no manual, no helpline, just my gut, my instincts.”

  “We can try again, but this time, focus on what you think is different and the reasons why you chose me.”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t work like that.”

  He held her hand.“I want to understand what happens in my eyes, why it happens, why me and nobody else in my family.”

  She focused on his eyes, his pupils, the irises…“it is just a random accident, a beautiful mutation of genes, you can be in winter all of a sudden.”

  “I am a silly snow globe.”

  “It is more than that, like every detail in our body. It is not a sum of all parts but the same code generating a w
hole being who is always growing, changing, dying.”

  With the tip of her fingers, Mercy touched Thiago’s eyelids.

  “There, how rare and unique. I can feel every particle.”

  “I can now, it is more like sand than snow.”

  “It is linked to your eyes, to your brain.”

  “Are you moving them or is it me?”

  The sound of a car engine could be heard from where they were. Mercy backed off Thiago and ran to the road. He took a moment to recover and followed her to find out a vehicle parked by the way. Braith has stepped down from it, staring at her.

  “You can’t go, it is dangerous for you, for us.” Mercy said to him.

  “I need to go online and find out.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “You won’t because you don’t care at all.”

  “I care about keeping us safe. You need more than punches to find your way out of situations, otherwise, they can track you and get to us.”

  “I need to find out whether the people on the list are safe or not.”

  “We will send Thiago, go back to the house.”

  Lark arrived with Ciana and Taran.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, he wanted to go to the town but I convinced him to stay. Thiago will do whatever we need for us.”

  “You convinced him? You mean you forced him.” Lark said.

  “What? What are you talking about?” Mercy replied.

  “You are doing it right now, you are trying to control me. I’ve learnt to see you.”

  “Me too.” Braith said.

  “You have been doing it with all of us, especially with Taran.”

  “No way, I feel fine.” Taran replied.

  “She knows Taran is the only one with a different enhancement than the rest of us. The chances of him noticing were zero.”

  “Is that true?” Ciana said. looking angrily at Mercy.

  “Of course it is not!” Mercy defended.

  “She is lying!” Both Braith and Lark replied.

  “Can you see that too?” Lark asked Braith.

  “Of course. It is all over her.”

  “Enough!” Mercy shouted.

  “You won’t tell me what to do!” Braith shouted while walking fast to her.

  It was too fast for her and the only she could think of was to scream Taran’s name who in a matter of seconds Tased Braith. Ciana looked at the scene with horror and was surprised again when Lark knocked the electric man down after a quick jump and a blow to his face.

  “He has been your puppet this whole time.” Said Lark referring to Taran.

  “You have no idea what are you dealing with.” Mercy told him.

  “I do. You are the one who does not comprehend what you are doing. This is taking over you and you need to control it, to control yourself.”

  “Really?”

  “You underestimate us and look what is happening.”

  “Oh, I am going to tell you what is about to happen.”

  Mercy walked towards him and when she was about to say something, her body plummeted down by the impact of a rock behind her head. Angry and agitated, Ciana still held the rock in her hand, looking at Lark.

  “Ciana, we better go now, before she wakes up. Help me to put Braith in the car.”

  “What about Taran?”

  “I think you lost him since we left the institute.”

  “What about our things?”

  “We don’t have much anyway. Between me and Braith, we’ll get you something.”

  After putting Braith in the car, they both looked at Thiago who has been witnessing silent the events the whole time.

  “Do you want to come with us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We cannot take him with us. He belongs to her now.” Said Lark before turning the engine and leaving with his two friends. Thiago remained there, in the middle of the road, processing the fact that a man has just tased another one, the incredible strength of two others and the accusations on Mercy who he was not sure to follow anymore. After picking up a second car at the garage, he loaded the unconscious couple in it and took them to the house, tucked them in bed and went to the kitchen to have a glass of wine. Bored, he wandered around the house until he arrived at Lark’s bedroom where some Spanish papers depicting the five friends laid on the night table. They were all fugitives of a military facility in the UK, accused of stealing sensitive information and attempted to sell it to terrorists. Suddenly, an episode of snow vision affected his eyes, blurring everything but this time, something different was happening. Every time the door was on his field of vision, it became clearer than the rest of the room. Thiago followed what the snow allowed him to see which basically led him outside the house just in time to hear a scream in the middle of a small explosion. When he tried to return inside the property, the snow blocked his vision as if telling him to stay clear of it. After a few moments, he realised it was Taran who has just woken up angry and emitting electrical discharges. By the noises inside, Taran was looking for Ciana and the others, shouting their names and going room by room. However, Thiago felt a growing anger coming from him and started running. Taran noticed his attempt to escape by looking out of one of the windows and went after Thiago. The snow warned Thiago that something was seriously wrong making him stop and led him to the forest where he laid still inside some bushes where after a few minutes he recovered his vision from time to time. When he less expected, Mercy arrived making his vision blurred again. She started to talk to Taran.

  “He shouldn’t be that far. Can you locate him?”

  “I think he is close but I can’t pinpoint him. It must be the hit on my head. I am not feeling well.”

  “Are you ok?”

  “I don’t feel that great, my head is about to explode.”

  “Let’s go back home. It is just you and me now.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  A few moments after they left, Thiago’s vision recovered which he saw as a sign to start moving. The signals from his eyes became a guide as every time he stopped, his vision blurred everything, this time telling him to continue running. The growing feeling of Mercy’s presence started to increase slowly every minute compelling him to go back while another part of him urged him to stay away from her. At some point, he could almost felt her inside of him, telling him to return but then he started running from that siren song. Mercy’s presence was with him during the rest of that day and night despite being kilometres away from the cabin. The bond created by the two of them was a life changing experience but he could not say exactly why or how. Thiago felt different, not to mention the two most obvious details that came with it. One of them was in relation to the snow inside his eyes, as if it was something he was able to relate to. “It” was clearly protecting him, guided him, warning about every danger and at that moment showing him the path to Madrid. With no money, no phone, no food, no car, he had managed to get very far and found a couple of ladies who gave him a lift back to the big city. Explaining to his friends all the recent events will be a pain because they would not understand the dimension of his experience which was the second obvious consequence of it: His link with Mercy. Still, he could feel her presence inside his head and could remember the feelings he experienced while looking at her. Thiago was not in love or anything of that nature, in fact, he understood she has been messing up with him in the most selfish way and for all he knew she was still trying to do it. Mercy was inside his brain, blinking in his thoughts, asking him to go back to her, sharing her uncertainty. Nevertheless, there was something beyond that, a feeling of liberation he never experienced before, the true knowledge that nobody and nothing could hold him back from what he wanted. Once he was back at his place, he decided to break up with his girlfriend, make travelling plans and enrolled in a photography course. His family and friends were surprised by the sudden chances given the unexpected of that turning point and the assertiveness of his decisions. He tried not to get in
volved in anything related to Mercy and her gang, despite that encounter and the origin of new beginnings. However, it was inevitable looking for them online every few days, trying to catch their scent, filling his curiosity about those five peculiar human beings and many times trying to stay clear of the news, especially the ones depicting disturbances in bullfighting, which were many. Mercy’s influence did not feel like an evil spell, nevertheless, he knew if he crossed paths with her, he will no longer be free. What he ignored is that a crossing of paths would be inevitable as his snow, always alert and looking out for him, warned him about an imminent danger refusing to leave. No matter the many turning points he was taken that day, danger or at least something that was not convenient followed him until he stopped in a random bench, tired of walking, hiding by small streets and bars in the centre of Madrid. Sitting there, breathing deep in the middle of his snow, Thiago was expecting being killed by a car out of control, a piano falling from a rooftop or struck by lightning. He remained there, quiet until a presence nearby took a seat next to him.

  “Please don’t run away.”

  His vision refused to let him see the woman next to him although her voice was familiar.

  “I don’t know how to explain this but I can’t see. Sometimes I have these episodes where everything gets blurred.” He explained to the woman.

  “No worries. Is there any place I can take you?”

  “Ciana?”

  “The same one, yes.”

  He tried to run but she grabbed him.

  “I need your help, please.”

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with you people.”

  “I am alone. The guys parted in different ways and I need some help.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I need a place to stay, only for a few days.”

  “It is more than that, I presume.”

  “Are you still in touch with Mercy?”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you mean by “not really”?”

  “It means exactly that.”

  “You can feel her.”

  “Why do you want to go back to her? You were the one who knocked her out in the first place”.

  “And that’s why you are here, free from her. You’re welcome.”