Hypersubjects

by Ainsley Komper

  After containing his emotions for a brief moment, Adam jumped and hugged Braith, only to push himself away abruptly.

  “I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t even know what to do next. I still have no idea if this is all related but I just couldn’t let you go.”

  “Related?”

  Braith was easily convinced that both incidents were connected and even said that it was a classic strategy from the institute but now Adam, once saying it out loud, found no hard evidence to prove the whole plot. Visibly angry, Braith grabbed Adam by the arm and drag him outside the place.

  “I don’t get it! Coming all the way here just to have seconds thoughts?”

  “What do you want me to do? Believe in everything you say, no questions asked and then what? Leaving all behind and run with you under the sunset?”

  “What are you talking about? This is not… there is no sunset here, don’t get any ideas.”

  “Fuck off.”

  He left, deep inside expecting Braith to stop him, to yell something rude that made him come back, but nothing happened. Once at his hotel room, he packed fast and texted an apology to his boyfriend. Adam felt utterly confused looking at himself in the bathroom mirror and when he went back to his bed, he couldn’t help but smile in relief of what he saw.

  “I only came back because you need to understand this once and for all.” Braith said.

  “Sneaking up on me, I should have known.”

  Braith had a big backpack with him and started to place its contents all over the sofa.

  “What are those? They look like sex toys.”

  “You wish.”

  “Are you planning on telling me what we are going to do? Or is this one of those situations where you want me to just do as you say, no questions asked?”

  Braith turned to Adam with a syringe and a breathing mask.

  “That would be lovely, thank you very much. Just sit.”

  “Hey!”

  Braith pushed him into the chair, went on his knees looking directly on Adam’s eyes.

  “This is the only way for you to believe me. It may work, it may not. I am not completely sure even if this may hurt you but it is the only way.”

  “What is all that?”

  “The stuff I went through at the institute. You won’t be the same after that.”

  “Will I turn green?”

  “I may need to restrain you.”

  “Just try to be in my shoes for a minute. Even if I believe everything you have been saying, now you want me to be tied up in a bed at your mercy, letting you drug me and God knows what. I can’t.”

  “You know I don’t need your permission to restrain you. I could overpower you in less than five seconds but I want you to trust me. I could have left you here but I did not.”

  “Why do you need to do this?”

  “If this was happening before I met you, I would have said: “Because it was the right thing to do and I could not run out of it. Suddenly, I had a conscious and she wouldn’t let me.”

  “That was before you met me. And now?”

  “Because out of all the weirdos I have met with crazy conditions, out of all the ones I have read about on the list, out of all the ones I have checked in the forums before and after all this craziness, out of all of them you are the…”

  “The hottest one?”

  “Enough of that!”

  “I am the what?”

  “The only one who is like me.”

  “My synesthesia is not common but not extremely rare.”

  “It is rare to have combined synesthesia and we both have them, the same varieties in similar degrees. Our physical evaluations looked almost the same, our lung capacity, heart readings, brain mappings, everything.”

  “Well, you are taller and bigger.”

  “That is not the point, anyway. If you don’t want to do this, fine. Besides, now that I say this, I think before getting involved in this whole thing, I wouldn’t let anyone else do anything like this to me. Actually, you have been very open with me. Maybe it’s for the best.”

  He started packing and then opened the window.

  “So that’s it? Are you leaving as usual, like Batman?”

  “I’m sorry. There is no other way and I don’t blame you.”

  “I want to do it. I trust you, I don’t know why but I do.”

  “It’s going to hurt.”

  “But you are going to protect me, right?”

  “I am going to need to protect myself from you actually.”

  Braith injected Adam with a dose of a dark substance and then strapped him to the bed.

  “The injection was not that bad.”

  “That was the easy part. I am going to tie your head to the bed as well.”

  Braith proceeded to do as he said and then put a soft piece of fabric inside Adam’s mouth.“

  You may want to scream or you may want to bite something.”

  He went to his backpack and came back with a glass bottle and an eye drop tube.

  “You did not need to lose the shirt but oh well, whatever makes you comfortable. Mmm, I wonder if I should take a picture and send it to your boyfriend.”

  Adam mumbled something which was irrelevant to Braith who sat next to him.

  “I am going to apply a few drops down each nostril and they are going to hurt like hell. However, for them to be effective, your head must be very still which will be impossible. I am going to hold it myself. Bear in mind that more than five guys tried to contain me, plus metal chains. They were all broken by the end of the dose so I am a bit scared now and I going to take a precaution.”

  He pulled out of the bag a breathing mask and inhaled three times from it.

  “Ok, let’s party.”

  Braith dosed Adam with the expected explosion of pain, including the breaking of the chains and all the kicking and punching involved. In the end, there was little left of the bed but Braith managed to proudly hold the fort with some bruises, scratching and a bit of blood.

  “What was that?” Said a confused Adam.

  “Go and take a shower, it will make you feel better. I will handle the concierge, I have money to cover the damages. Don’t go anywhere.”

  But that did not work at all as Adam was gone by the time Braith came back. Fortunately, Braith was able to pick a scent, a trail characteristic from his newly enhanced friend with the corresponding visual mark. Adam had panicked handling the overwhelming feeling of perceptions, that overcharge of sensations perfectly known to Braith. On top of that, there was an urge of strength coming out of his body, difficult to tame. When Braith found him, he punched him a couple of times until the tall guy grabbed every fist of Adam’s and held them.

  “Just breathe, slowly.”

  They were on a green patch close by the sea.“I can smell everything, I mean everything. There are worms around here.”

  “I know, and a dead frog and the fishes jumping out of the sea.”

  “Do you feel them too? And the burnt plastic? What is that?”

  “Old cars.”

  Adam laughed profusely and punched Braith in the chest, who in turn punched him back. Braith seemed stronger, although Adam had gained more.

  “Listen, there is more. I don’t have much time.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have time? I believe you now, everything you say, anything.”

  Braith produced the breathing mask.

  “Inhale three times, slowly.”

  He placed the mask on Adam’s face and he did as requested.

  “Now, tell me what you see.”

  When he removed the mask, Adam smiled calmly.

  “Nothing, I mean, I see what I always see. Why? Should I be seeing pink elephants or something?”

  “Kind of. Maybe this doesn’t work on you. I am surprised the drops did.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, just, mmm, I am fine. I just wanted you to believe me, I mean you do.”

  “You wanted me to see
what you see.

  ”“Well, for once someone would feel what is to be me. There was a guy, Lark, but he was different in other ways. It was nice to be around him. We had a disagreement and now he is gone.”

  “I am sorry. I just, you know. It is like I only see the world as it is.”

  “Sure.”

  “Like everything is connected and every living thing is pulsating with subtle halos.”

  “No way.”

  They both burst into laughter.

  “Is that what you see?” Adam asked him.

  “That and more!”“So much more!”

  After sharing a short hug, Adam had to stop his phone from ringing.

  “It was my boyfriend, no worries.”

  “Well, now you know, so you need to figure out what to do.”

  “What? Are you leaving me?”

  “I cannot stay in the UK for much longer. They will pick up my trail eventually.”

  “Then I am coming with you.”

  “What? No way!”

  “I need to understand this. You cannot drop this bomb on me and expecting I will be fine on my own.”

  “Relax, you will learn with time.”

  “There is no time, they are onto me, remember?”

  “I am leaving soon, maybe tomorrow or the day after. I could give you some pointers but then you are on your own. End of the story.”

  They walked towards the sea while Braith began to explain the details of his perceptions, what he had learnt in the past year, how to read people’s feelings, his strength and other physical abilities.

  “This woman, Mercy, she was enhanced in a different way. Somehow, she was able to connect deeply with people even to the point of manipulating them, feeling what they felt and planting emotions on them.”

  “I don’t think I could handle that.”

  “Neither can she. The point is that this is all new territory for her and for us. At some point, she got inside our minds, mine and Lark’s, and she did something that enabled us to enhance our perceptions permanently, without the need for this.”

  He handed the breathing mask to Adam.“Take it. I was using it because I was not confident but I know I don’t need it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The doses are not infinite so use them wisely. We need to rest for tomorrow.”

  “What are we doing tomorrow?”

  “We are going to a casino.”

  “Why?”

  According to Braith, casinos and weddings were the best places to check people’s emotions and train in how to read them. Some airports too but there was nothing like a busy night on a casino or a big wedding reception, the latter being more difficult to find. Once in the casino, they looked around the people engaged in all the games.

  “All of them are lying and that is one of the key emotions in human nature. Then you will see a full range.”

  “You mean despair, hope, happiness, sadness, anxiety, anger, excitement.”

  “There you go, you are selling the whole experience.”

  Braith guided Adam into identifying the way he could read people’s emotions while making some money on the way. They went through different tables, several games, all sort of characters with different personality traits including addicts, revellers and naive groups of co-workers. Some of them tried to impress each other while many of them were for the fun, the thrill. As fascinating as it was for Adam, it was too much to handle and he felt overwhelmed by the immense amount of knowledge thrown at him.

  “Now I know how you have all that cash to pay for the room, to travel around and remain off the grid.”

  “Not all of it comes from that.”

  “From where then?”

  “You will figure your own ways with time. I need to find a friend. We are going to be part of something called SETBACK DAY. It is important.”

  “I could help you with that.”

  “I like to be alone. I am not used to taking care of anyone else. Besides, what about your boyfriend, your family?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll think of something.”

  “It is not that easy and you know it.”

  Braith made sure Adam went back to the hotel and agreed to meet him the day after for breakfast and for a last round of training. Already, Adam could tell that Braith was lying and also there was a dark feeling in his shade of emotions. The morning after, he never came back knocking at Adam’s door. As predicted, Braith had left without saying goodbye, probably because he had the feeling that Adam would not let him go. Back into the routine, he decided to continue his normal life, returned to the gym and all his peculiar habits and ignored the phone calls to reschedule the health check-ups. When the company pushed for them, he quit and began to spend more time in the casinos around. His life was different as he was able to see the real feelings of the people around. It was difficult to process, especially when he realised that his boyfriend was more like a friend who had just settled for him because he was just easy to handle. One day, he broke up with him, sent everything to a storage and said to his friends that he will go to Africa do some volunteering. The reality was different because his destination was Southampton. Using his newly found skills, he found the man who smuggled Braith out of the country and asked for the same destination. Once in the Netherlands, it was more difficult but he did not stop until one day by the sea, he inhaled not only once or twice but ten times in a row from the breathing mask. In a matter of seconds, he started running and laughing, Adam did not stop running for more than three hours. Sometimes he ran following different patterns, chasing an elusive trail, going after traces of smells and halos that reminded him to Braith. When he thought that maybe, by that time, he was in another country and he finally found him. He couldn’t believe it, it seemed so unlike him, so random, out of the blue but he did it. Once in front of him, he did not know what the right words were and just blurted out how he felt.

  “I’ve left everything because nothing makes sense now. I don’t care what you say.”

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  “I know you are happy because I can see it now. I know you, I saw that glow the other day.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Because I am the only one in the universe like you, we even have the same halo, the same scent, it is like we were meant to meet and I am not going to let you go.”

  “Ok, this is insane, I get that you may be saying all that because of an overdose of endorphins. You have run a lot, you are over-excited, with blood pumping up.”

  “As I said, I don’t care what you say. I’ve found you because I can feel you. I don’t feel anyone else like I feel you.”

  Braith laughed and was moved about how truly sweet the crazy creature in front of him was.

  “What if you had led them to me?”

  “Impossible.”

  “You need to learn to be off the grid.”

  “Then teach me.”

  During all of his tips to be under the radar, Braith highlighted the importance of having an emergency escape plan. In this case, he was working on that one which was a run-down building in the outskirts of the small city he was living. The building was under some lengthy legal battle which would take years to solve. Braith had already identified the key spots in the structure to demolish the building. As part of an old factory, the building had some tunnels for waste that could serve as an escape route while the impact of the building going down would create a distraction. The only problem left was that completely sealing the escape route could only be possible from the outside and not from inside tunnels. Adam was annoyed by the fact that Braith kept busy on that project every second of his time and barely had time to eat and sleep.

  “Because I think, somehow, they tracked you here. We may outrun them but it will go on and on. Maybe this whole thing will give us more time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Going somewhere out of the EU. Maybe Russia, India, somewhere in the Pacific.”

  �
��I think you are avoiding me. Like you basically keep yourself busy so we cannot talk about the elephant in the room.”

  “The only elephant here is them trying to crush you.”

  “There is something about you, about us. Since I inhale that dust, we are connected.”

  “At my age, you don’t believe in those tales anymore.”

  “Why is it so difficult for you to accept it?”

  “Accept what? That this is a love story? It is not. We are both going to be dead soon if you don’t let me work.”

  “Then why tell me the truth and making me part of this? Why did you save me?”

  “I did not save you. I bought you some time so you can save yourself but by the look of it, I wasted my time.”

  Adam went outside without saying a word. The world as he knew it was gone, he left it behind in a rush for going after Braith and at that moment he realised how big the mistake was. Even if the whole paranoid story was true, he did not have it in him to be a fugitive, an outlaw. The unlikely scenario where he could survive as a gambler, far away from family, friends and England was laughable. On top of that, an unwilling partner in crime did not make the situation any better. Adam contemplated the possibility of coming back but the only thing he actually wanted was to be with Braith as crazy and cheesy as that sounded. Facing the fact that everything was in his head hurt him harsh and took them back to the years in high school when his assumptions played painful tricks on him. However, it looked like the lesson had never been learnt and the only way was going back home to restart his life.

  “I can feel that you are thinking about me.” Said Braith, crossing his path on the street.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” Replied Adam with a lie.

  “I’ve been doing this way longer than you. I can tell.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To show you something, come.”

  Braith started running behind towards the back of the building and stop next to a car.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I stole it. Come on, we need to go. I want to show you something.”

  “I don’t care. I am leaving you, I think I will go home.”