by J. Kowallis
It takes only minutes to eat the entire dinner. I fall back on the bed, letting the mass of starch, protein, and yeast expand in my stomach. It wasn’t smart to eat so fast, but I couldn’t help it. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing.
My eyes close. I keep hoping Roydon’s going to show up again. Prove to me he’s still all right. I wish I knew.
Eight legs scamper across my neck and into my hair and I lazily brush them away. When I open my eyes, I see twinkling dust dancing in the moonlight streaming through the cloudy window of the hotel room. I think about Roy, telling me I could ignite fire in the air. If I needed a catalyst . . . why not dust? I focus on the clouds of dust. The force behind my eyes begins to build, and I feel like someone’s pressing on my brain from behind. I close my eyes to end it. It was stupid. Accomplishing something like that is impossible. I knew that before.
Do you know it because you can’t, or you can’t because you know it?
Roy’s haunting voice in my head makes me flip over onto my stomach. That’d be something he’d say. Maybe not anymore, though. Who knows what The Public’s done to him by now?
I reach over for a scrap of garbage—a half moldy piece of paper and twiddle it in my fingers. Instantly it goes up in flame, and the glow heats my red eyes. I toss the ashes away from me, most of them fluttering onto my chest, and put my hand to my eyes. They water involuntarily, sending a stream of tears down my face. I didn’t expect my eyes to still be sensitive to that small amount of light.
I listen to the ruckus of the small street fight down the block, still continuing on, and keep my eyes closed, imagining what’s happening. Tactics and moves run through my mind. I roll over onto my side, curling my legs up. The visualized movements still play behind my burning eyes like shadows lulling me to sleep.
―CARMEN―
She could do it. Carmen took a deep breath and slipped the control glove onto her hand.
“You ready for this, Carmen?” Dr. Folland took a sip from his coffee and then placed it on the polished table next to him.
“Yes, Doctor. Before we get to inner traits, I have the physical characteristics of the subject first.” Carmen opened the subject’s file. The male’s sharp face appeared on the screen, glaring at her with his icy pale eyes. “Male. Age undetermined, but body structure places him in his early to mid-twenties. Brown hair, blue eyes, and of an unknown Caucasian ethnic descent. I.Q. is extremely high, based on chemical tests.
“After observation and thorough DNA testing, subject shows near-perfect targeting abilities, quick reflexes, an extremely strong musculature, cognitive ability to and . . . an unseen ability to duplicate his visage in physical form.”
“Corporeal Fission,” Dr. Folland cleared his throat.
“Yes, sir. Faults include an extremely emotional response to various tests,” Carmen moved the files around, bringing up a variety of other results, “other responses include—”
“Carmen, I think we’re good with the report.”
She brought her hand down and turned to look at the doctor. He was rushing her. He’d never done that before. “Doctor?”
“I’ve already seen the report. Intellectual and physical characteristics are complementary to The Nexis. Move on.”
She hesitantly nodded, but moved back to the files. “The face is near proportional. Damage from regular physical abuse has created imperfections. Bones have healed incorrectly throughout the body.”
The projected image of the subject’s body zoomed out and the nude form of the body spun in front of them. Muscles and tendons pulled tight down the subject’s lean thighs, arms, and back. “Scars blanket seventy percent of the dermis. Major reconstruction is needed throughout the form.”
“Approved. I’m recommending mounting functions from sections Alpha twelve through twenty-five, including all strengths, and weaknesses. Removal of memory functions as usual, and emotional deduction.” Doctor Folland cleared his throat and placed a hand on Carmen’s shoulder. “Make me a prize subject, Carmen. We’re trusting you.”
“Yes,” her voice wavered in excitement. It was heart pounding.
“I’ll be back in two hours to approve.”
He left the room, leaving the rich scent of his coffee behind. She turned back when the doctor left the room, the door sliding shut behind him. Biting down on her lip, she anxiously twitched her fingers before lifting her gloved hand. After opening a few files, Carmen panned her hands across, increasing the view on a scan of the subject’s head. She’d at least start with the things she knew how to do. With a few selections, the skin and flesh disappeared. The skeletal structure stood before her. Scans showed where bones had been broken and healed. Most were visible with the naked eye. She re-broke bones, re-set them, and altered every possible imperfection on the subject.
She panned in again and rotated the image of the skeleton around in the air. The back structure twisted irregularly from multiple blows to the spine. With a swipe of her thumb and forefinger, she re-aligned the bones, adding in healthy replacements. When the skeletal structure was finished, she replaced the flesh. Amplification of the muscle structure included the growth of extra tissue where muscles were torn and damaged. The development of the subject’s body surprised Carmen. During her modification process, she’d never run into a naturally perfect design, but even with the years of abuse to the subject’s body, she would have considered it perfect. Not cosmetically, but structurally.
After whitening the severely yellowed and broken teeth, and the rest of his physical attributes were altered, she stripped the tissue and skeletal systems away and expanded the form to the brain. She got to work rewiring connections, intensifying neural pathways and reconstructing areas that were less than desirable. The most difficult part was that what would typically be underdeveloped portions of the mind like emotional control, intelligence, fear center management, reasoning, coordination, and resolution discovery for average subjects she worked on, simply didn’t even exist in this subject. Not like others. Everything was wired with slight differences, and she carefully studied the neural strings, realizing this was better than a textbook construction. She’d never seen it before. It was more intricate, and there was no recognizable starting point for her.
Carmen stood from her chair and moved away from the projection. She could do this. She simply didn’t know how, yet. There were many more differences in this subject compared to the others she’d modified. How would she do this? This subject’s mental fingerprint was so complex, so perfectly connected . . . all she could do was make small improvements. That’s what she’d have to do. Take it little by little.
She fell into her chair and her hands flew, moving portions of the brain around, growing sections of his mind. It was only when she dug deeper to diminish emotional faculties that she found it. His power to project was buried deep. A work of art; additional connections in his mind, naturally re-wiring the abilities of his consciousness in patterns so carefully crafted, she paused for the chance to take it in.
Carmen’s left hand lifted to finger the subject’s digital image. Amazement overtook her. Like nothing she’d ever seen before. She navigated through each pathway until she was sure she had the right one. With only a few movements, she pieced the conduits of his advanced pre-frontal cortex back together and contracted her view. Replacing the frame, tissue, and skin, she tested the amplifications by scanning the subject’s projection. With no errors in her work, she smiled to herself and took a deep breath.
“Well, D156,” she whispered, addressing the subject by his file name, “I shouldn’t say this, but you’re more attractive than you were before. And that’s saying something.”
The door slid open again with a depressurized hiss and she turned to see Dr. Folland walk in.
“Has it been two hours already?” she asked, looking to the clock.
“Almost two and a half. Sorry, I’m late. But it looks like you’re just finishing, yourself.” He stepped forward and waved his han
d over the projection, turning it in the air. “How was the mental reconstruction?”
“Complicated. However, when I figured out how it was wired, the process went quicker than I thought it would. In fact,” Carmen raised a finger, “I wanted to show you something.” Carmen stepped forward and reached up, expanding the skull and removing the skin, flesh, and bone so only the brain was showing once more.
“I assumed his extra ability came from an over-developed dorsal lateral pre-frontal cortex. Perhaps his over-rational mind would create a funnel in order to concentrate on dividing his attention two ways. Though, what I found was this ability stems from the same section of the brain where natural human dream states originate.”
Dr. Folland took a deep breath, his mouth open, and nodded. “The emotional center.”
“Exactly.” Carmen folded her arms. “And of course, since we need to decrease emotional response, this would have diminished his ability.”
“Excuse me?” Dr. Folland frowned at her, worried divots furrowed between his eyes.
“Of course, any other modifier would have seen it that way.” She smiled. “But by reconnecting pathways between the pre-frontal cortex and certain sections of the emotion center, I was able to isolate the ability and tap into the rational center. In other words he can now consciously choose not only when he fissions so his body won’t duplicate on its own, but also how fast he can create a duplicate, and how many . . .”
“. . . duplicates he creates.”
Carmen nodded. “It was quite extraordinary. In a way, I’m sad to be finished with this subject.”
Dr. Folland didn’t take his eyes away from the subject’s form while it spun slowly in front of them. “Well, you’re not done yet. I’ll accompany you to the pod so we can be sure the transformation proceeds smoothly.”
“Yes, sir.” She’d forgotten about the new security protocols. Where she was able to enter that area before, she now had to be babysat. It was an inconvenience, especially where her position had had more trust and respect than others had.
Carmen leaned over and sent the files to the appropriate system to be downloaded to the pod. “After you, Doctor.”
They left the room and took the elevator to the lower levels. After clearing security, Dr. Folland showed her to the separate section of the lab where the particular subject was encapsulated. She wasn’t sure why he was separated from the other subjects, but logical deduction suggested he was too special and important to be out in the “open.”
Through a set of large heavy-set titanium doors, was a row of five isolated pods. Only one pod was occupied. The subject’s shoulder-length dark hair floated in the fluid around him, swirling lightly around his sharp jaw and above his head like a halo. The process was already beginning. Occasional jerks and flinches of his body suggested the physical reconstruction had started.
Dr. Folland pressed the pad adjacent to the pod and the subject’s hologram hovered in the air. He checked for vital signs, brain reconstruction, and double-checked every possible mapping coordinate.
Although that was typically Carmen’s job, she wasn’t paying attention to the doctor. Her eyes were set on the subject. His fists were clenched tight, his toes splayed in every direction. When his body twisted violently to the right, she recognized the work she’d done on his spinal column. The subject’s face knotted and grimaced with each movement of the bones. His head slammed heavily into the pod glass and bounced back, making a deep hollow clunk. For a moment, his body went still.
Already, she could see the differences in his skin and face. The physical reconstruction was taking time to recover before beginning again. Now, it was the mind’s turn. The initial steps.
Carmen let out a high-pitched squeak when the subject jerked once more, his eyes flying open in an uninhabited reflex.
―RANSLEY―
“No, no, no, no, no. Please, come on,” I plead with the car’s sputtering engine. The needle on the gas gauge bounces around and then nose-dives. The last hundred of my pesos hasn’t taken me as far as I hoped. Silence replaces the grumbled roar of the engine and it comes to a stop. I’m stranded on the road, the headlights still looking ahead.
My palms slam against the steering wheel of the car I kiped and I cuss aloud. I have no idea how close I am to The Public, and now I’m stranded in the middle of the longest dead freeway in South America. I reach around and grab the bag I’d thrown in the back, pulling it up front with me. The door hinges creek at me before I get out and I slam the door. The whole car shudders with the impact.
Who am I kidding? I’m lucky I got this far in that piece of junk.
I throw the bag over my shoulder and start walking, the headlights still glowing dimly on the road. My shadow stretches out in front of me like a giant. I hike over a bridge overpass after a couple miles and hear a shuffling noise from behind me. My pulse rockets and I grab the side barrier and jump over it, squatting low in the shadow. Now that my heart is safely lodged in my throat, I realize the shuffling came from the echo of my own feet. I rest my head back and take a deep breath, relieved there’s no one else. The darkness stretches out in front of me before I can see the edge of the overpass. My head twists and I look over the barrier carefully, just in case. When I don’t see anything, I pick up the bag I’d dropped next to me and hop back over the barrier.
At least three more times that happens. Every time I hear a noise I run off the road and hide behind one of the broken cement barriers, a car, or anything large enough to conceal me. But there’s never anything there. I know I’m scaring myself, and I finally get to a point I ignore what I’m hearing. If I keep jumping off to the side, I’ll never make it to The Public.
I make myself keep moving.
My thoughts travel to Estevan and I wonder if I’ve done the right thing by leaving him behind. I shake my head. Of course I did. I couldn’t have expected him to help in this. He doesn’t even like Roy, and right now, Roy’s all I can focus on. When I close my eyes, he’s there. When I wake up . . . I swear he’s still there. What could they have done to him? He projected to me once, and I don’t understand why I haven’t seen him since.
Rocks crunch beneath my feet. I run into a broken car bumper lying in the road. I hate to imagine what would have happened if I’d still been driving and hadn’t seen it.
The highway climbs higher up the hillside, making me take longer steps to get to the crest faster. My thighs burn and my feet are sweating; threatening to break out into new blisters the longer I walk. How long has it been? A few minutes? Hours?
Faint radiance halos the top of the highway and I push myself even faster. That can’t be the sun already. I can’t get caught in the daylight around The Public. My chest tightens and I struggle to keep breathing with each step up the hill, closer and closer.
When I finally reach the crown, I sigh in relief, mixed with harsh exerted panting. The Fourth Public lies below. The vast city looks like an old industrial steel plant. Each dark building and tower has a line of lights set up and down the sides. Overcharged spotlights planted on the outside light up the gated walls and mist rises from select areas of the city. Curfew hasn’t set in yet. There are still a few transports roaming the streets. I can see the faint glow of the moving headlights—which means I have time to get some sleep for the night.
Off to the side of the road is a thicket of pine trees and brush. I hop the cement barrier and weave around ruins of homes that’ve been brushed by war. Many don’t have roofs, and even more are only identified by a single wall still standing.
Breaching the edges of the trees I find a few homes still scattered within, but avoid them. There’s a spot with an easy-to-climb tree, still within sight of the public, and I pull myself up. The bark scratches the palms of my hands and forearms the further up I go. I find a solid branch and straddle it, pulling my bag around in front of me. From the inside, I pull the large coat and drape it over my lap and around the limb, tying myself on. When my head leans back against the tree, I final
ly allow myself to relax.
The burning of the day has carried over tonight and when I stop moving, sweat beads at the top of my forehead, and over my stomach and back. A gentle early evening breeze blows against me, cooling the sweat, making me that much more comfortable.
I still can’t sleep.
Roy’s face keeps appearing in front of me with each blink. I keep hearing him plead with me not to come. I don’t regret my decision, but I worry about him. I hear him asking me repeatedly, Have you ever started fire out of thin air? You should try.
Using the same part of my mind I dip into each time I touch an igniter, I look at the air in front of my face. The more I focus, the more I try to use my power, the more I feel like I’m giving myself the worst brain-freeze in the world. “Screw it,” I whisper, squinting my eyes and wishing away the headache.
From the corner of my vision, I see the flittering shadows of dead leaves. I reach up and pull one off, twirling it in between my fingertips. It instantly bursts into a small flame. Now, this I can do.
I wait out the fire’s life and then let the ashes float to the ground below. I finger another leaf and snap it off. Again, a dancing fire engulfs the leaf, but this time, I control the fire, cupping it in my hand to keep it from dying. With another finger, I poke inside the flames and feel it warmly kissing the nerves on my hand. While humming, I manipulate the flames to dance in a whimsical flurry. Curling around my finger tips, twisting into delicate wisps.
I let it die again, going silent.