LEARNING FEAR

by B. A. Chepaitis

  That sounded final enough to Jaguar. She quickly exited the scene, turning a corner, where she stopped and waited, listening as heels clicked toward her, then receded.

  Jaguar waited to see who would come out of Emily's office next. This wasn't safe. None of it. But she had to know who, even if she couldn't know what or why or how.

  The door to Emily's office stayed closed. She could wait longer, or she could knock on the door and see who opened. She sniffed the air for knowledge, and found none. Only a rippling in her skin, disturbed electrochemical responses, and the slip of night her only cloak, her only protection. Here we go again, she thought.

  You are being watched. Walk now.

  She straightened, glided silently down the hall, noted that the walls were a vision in infrared and she could feel her pupils dilating to read it.

  Now. In time to the sighing, it emerged from her and not from her. Old friend. Circling slowly. Space curved back in on itself and walked in circles. She curved her body around it and let the curl of time she had become carry her down the halls, scenting the air for knowledge.

  Go. Down the stairs. Go now.

  Down the stairs and through the doors, into tunnels that were dimly lit, tunnels she saw in the leached infrared of vision available to her.

  She scanned the corridor she was in. Saw it as familiar. She'd walked here already, knew the layout, where corner met door, where trash went, where great canisters of Arcon and Lacro were stored, where pipes became warm as heat flowed through them. She'd seen it with night eyes, in the darkness of reduced lighting. She'd walked many places, understanding them through scent and the infrared edge of vision. And the knowledge she gathered from these walks existed inside her without words, and was accumulating. It would be there for her when she needed it.

  The corridor seemed to roll on with no breaks for quite some time, snaking Escher-like toward nowhere, or perhaps back toward itself. An optical illusion of unchanging landscape, giving you the feeling that you were going nowhere. That you were standing still.

  She opened one of the black doors and walked on, toward what she knew were the dormitories. The tunnels narrowed here, and there were no lights because they weren't supposed to be in use. She walked, and quickly realized that someone walked behind her.

  She heard footsteps trailing her, and she walked on.

  The presence had a smell that was slightly familiar. A student? Katia? Steve? No. A smell she didn't associate with this place.

  Hide. Now.

  The directive propelled her forward, and to the shelter of a pile of desks waiting to be carted away for repair or recycling.

  She sat, listening, feeling her own vision return to her. She swallowed, felt at her hands and arms. Put her hands to her face. All present and accounted for. And waiting for company.

  There. Footsteps drawing closer. Closer. She could smell the human presence, sense when to leap and—

  Now.

  Her long arm reached out and grabbed a chunk of flesh, flung it to the cement floor, and held it there. She put her body on his back, holding one of his arms back, and with her other hand pinching hard at the back of his neck.

  She waited for him to speak.

  "Um, Dr. Addams," he said, "do you mind letting me explain this?"

  She frowned at the body under her. She recognized that voice. Someone from Alex's office. She stood and flipped him onto his back. Stared hard.

  "Brad?" she asked.

  He sat up, rubbed at his arm. "Yes, Dr. Addams," he said. "It's me."

  "Oh, for fuck's sake," she said. "What are you doing here?"

  She put a hand down and helped him to his feet, then stood with her hands on her hips and tapped a foot. "Go on," she invited him, "explain yourself."

  He breathed in and out deeply. "I'm keeping an eye on you."

  "For whom?"

  "Supervisor Dzarny," he said, and held a hand up to protect his face when he saw hers.

  "Alex sent you? To watch me?"

  "He was worried, Dr. Addams. He's—worried."

  Alex was worried. Alex was worried. She was going crazy, and he was worried. In her fury, she turned glittering eyes like blades to Brad, stuck a finger in his face.

  "Tell him," she hissed, and then she stopped.

  Tell him what?

  Something she needed to tell him. She listened. In her and around her, the swirling energy of the chant-shape moved. Alex had to do something. She had to tell him.

  She raised golden eyes to a very surprised Brad. Spoke into him and around him.

  Go back and tell him he must choose. Tell him. GO. NOW.

  Within the vision that was filling her and becoming her, she saw him retreat down the tunnels, running away from her. Very fast.

  Planetoid Three, Toronto Replica

  Alex went directly home after the omega scan and tried to telecom Jaguar. He tried five times, in five different places. Each time the connection failed, not even allowing him to leave a message. He debated leaving a message at the department office, making it sound urgent, but was reluctant to make that public a move. Then Brad's most recent report came through, and he was glad he waited.

  He'd had nothing new to report in the last week. No one had tried to contact him about curing empaths. Nothing was new with Private Sanctions. He continued to follow Jaguar, who was teaching, spending time with a student named Katia Stone, with Ethan Davis. Yesterday, she went with Leonard to the local Serials memorial and put flowers in the snow. She seemed a little distracted.

  He thought of her, putting flowers in the snow. It had snowed there. Somehow, he'd gotten through almost three months without her. Somehow, the great gaping holes she left in his life carried him through time anyway, though they still felt like great gaping holes.

  Then, today, Brad reported that she'd spotted him following her in the tunnels. All was not well. Brad described her as agitated. She said things he didn't understand. Something about Alex had to choose. She didn't say choose what. Implicit in her words was the command to stay away until he did choose.

  Words spoken in the chant-shape were always the truth. Actions always had something true in them. That was the nature of the beast. Alex would like to pretend he didn't know what she meant, but he couldn't. Choose. Choose the truth. Stay away until you do.

  He made dinner for himself, then found he was too tired to eat. A darkness folded around him. A malaise of almost sorrow. He went and sat in his rocking chair, stared out at the lake, and tried to think of nothing. Time moved around him slowly, carefully. His hand twitched in his lap, and he watched it twitch. Adept space, curving around him, unsought.

  All right, he thought. Okay.

  He waited for the falling to begin, relaxed into it, feeling boundaries dissolve around him as he was washed away into what would be. Into what would be.

  Into rain forest, thick and steamy. Click and buzz of wings and call of birds. A river, and a log in the river that he stepped onto.

  Wait. That's the past. Not right.

  Stepped onto the log, and as it carried him downriver, he saw the great golden eyes of the jaguar, seeking him. Seeking him as his ancestors sought light and heat and sun.

  Give me your eyes.

  He turned to her, saw the golden fire she promised.

  Her eyes pulled at him. He was already chosen. That was the truth. But he could refuse it. He had a choice, too.

  As if I ever wanted one.

  He felt her laughter resonate within him, saw her float away down the river as he swam up into normal time and space, opened his eyes, and blinked at his own reflection in the darkened window.

  "What?" he asked, a short prayer to the deities that swarmed him. "What?"

  And like their namesake, the jaguar people made no response.

  He pushed himself up from his chair, and walked into his living room.

  Choose.

  He couldn't make the vision go away. He could only make her go away, as he had.

  He took a d
eep breath. Walked over to the part of the living room where a dart set hung on the wall, and opened it, pulled out the darts, and stood back from the board.

  He hefted a dart in his hands, felt the weight of it, let it rest on his finger in perfect balance.

  Okay, he said to himself, so you want her. You want her in your bed. That's no surprise. She's beautiful and compelling and wild. What man doesn't look at her and feel a yearning? It's nothing to be ashamed of. But you've never made her pay for your unkempt desire.

  He'd been willing to work with her in a growing cloud of unresolved sexual tension. He hadn't said a damn word to her about it, never plagued her with what he considered to be his problem.

  What a saint, he chided himself. Saint and martyr. As if she needed his protection in that. She wasn't a child, and she wouldn't take offense at honest desire. She might not necessarily take advantage of it, either, but he wouldn't be harming her by telling her about it. So why hadn't he talked to her about it?

  He closed his eyes, tossed the dart, and it stuck on the outside ring.

  All right, then. Maybe it's more than that. More than lust. But he wasn't about to act on it even if it was. He was her supervisor, dammit, and he wouldn't breach protocol with her.

  He tossed another dart, eyes shut, and it bounced off the board, fell onto the floor.

  "Hell," he muttered. "I've never been her boss. Nobody has."

  And that was the truth. When they worked together it was as a team, and an excellent one. She told him once that she didn't worry too much about getting in trouble, because if she had to quit her Planetoid job, she could always sign on with Moon Illusion full-time. Or go back to Jake and One Bird. Or teach at a college. She knew how to take care of herself, and never gave him more power than was his by innate talent or experience. His title meant very little to her. Even in this situation, she could have refused to go, resigned, walked away. That she hadn't was significant, though he wasn't sure what it signified.

  He closed his eyes, stood swaying in the internal darkness, darts in his hands.

  Tell me what, he asked himself. The part of me that knows. Just say it.

  Choose.

  He was chosen long ago. Soul work beyond his control. Spirits wandering, seeking sun and finding each other, waiting for the knowledge to become action and words. He had seen long ago. Now he was being asked to live it.

  How can I? he asked, desperation in his belly. How can I?

  How did you love something wild without either domesticating it, or being eaten by it?

  Somewhere inside him, he heard laughter. He knew the answer to that.

  Feed it.

  You could live with something wild, as long as you kept it well fed.

  He knew that. That was how he'd worked with her so successfully all these years. But no matter what he chose, she would always be wild, raw, untamable. What he found most valuable in her was what made all of this such a risk. Because even if he chose her, there was no telling what she'd choose. The stakes were too high, and the odds were too damn low.

  Like stone hitting stone and making sparks, his words slammed into truth at last, and he knew.

  He was afraid of losing her.

  Afraid of trying, for fear of losing. Afraid of losing her entirely, to the wilderness she would always be. To the nature of the beast. Afraid she'd get herself killed, sleep around, reject him. He was afraid he'd have to live without her, and so he'd sent her away. It had, at least, given him the illusion of control.

  He breathed into himself and let go of fear. Let go of his last shred of resistance to those golden eyes that pulled at him in the dark. Let the truth be named. Face it. Have done with it. It didn't matter what she chose. It didn't matter if he lost her. What mattered was that he chose to speak his truth, admit what was in his own heart.

  It might end up hurting like hell, but his continued denial could kill her.

  I choose you. I choose you, Jaguar. I choose you.

  With his eyes closed, he drew back his arm and threw the last dart, heard it catch with a thunk in the board. When he opened his eyes, he saw it stuck firmly in the center. Bull's-eye. He leaned forward and covered his face with his hands.

  12

  JAGUAR JERKED HER HEAD UP FROM THE MASK she was making and looked around at her students.

  "Does someone want me?" she asked. Heads rose above work in progress, but nobody said anything.

  She'd heard someone calling her. Asking her—no. Telling her something. But what? She shook herself. Gone. It was gone.

  The most recent studio effort of the group Moon Illusion was on the disk player and the students, in their groups, were chatting, cutting out pieces of paper and plastic, gluing together string and feathers and leaves. She felt herself floating in and out of real time and space, but the students didn't seem to notice.

  They were busy making masks.

  She set them up in small groups, each of which would design its own brand of spirituality and ritual. They had to learn what their options were before they made choices. They had to see how their beliefs were interconnected with other systems of belief, see the overlap between practice and belief. They had to argue with each other, learn from each other, examine their backgrounds, and get the feel of the sacred as it lived within them.

  So she had them make masks of what they saw as sacred in themselves, because how could they understand the multitude of ways people named the sacred and lived within it if they couldn't find where it lived in them?

  She realized that for good or ill, she was conducting class very much as she conducted her work on the Planetoids. The students couldn't sit passively and listen to her talk. They needed to get their hands and hearts into the learning. And they were integrating their learning, too. Tonight, as they sat in their groups and worked on their masks, she could see that.

  Jesse was making a mask of eyes. All eyes, with something like wings around the edges. Jesse, who wanted to work in movies. There. That was his version of the sacred. Very nice, she thought.

  Glen's mask was a large and meaty hand gently cradling a hummingbird in the palm. He worked slowly, taking the utmost care as his own fleshy fingers carved out the image he sought.

  When the class had discussed the idea of spirit guides, trading stories of interactions they'd had with wild animals, Glen told that once a hummingbird buzzed his ear in Grand Central Station.

  "That was weird," he said. "A hummingbird, like trying to drink out of my ear."

  "Not so strange," she said, "If you want to be a writer."

  His jaw dropped open. "How did you—did someone tell you that?"

  She shook her head. "The Aztec say that the hummingbird puts the song in the ear of the poet. That's their spirit guide. You want to write?"

  A slow grin had spread across his heavy face. As it turned out, he did. It was a nice moment.

  And then, looking over at Taquana's work, Jaguar saw that indeed she had kept the hair from the fight. She was using some of it to make herself a warrior woman's mask.

  Katia's mask was a drifing of black cloth over a face that kept its eyes and mouth closed. She told Jaguar she'd painted something else under the surface, but she wouldn't say what it was. She just looked nervously at Steve when Jaguar asked. Katia was trying to please him and Jaguar at the same time. It was an impossible task, and one that made her lose sight of what might actually please herself.

  Complicated kids, she thought. The first generation after the Killing Times. She had read that children of Holocaust survivors had borne the weight of generational fear, and assumed these young men and women had, in some sense, to do the same. Their parents' fears worked around and in them.

  She walked around the class, looking at the work they were engaged in, commenting here and there.

  "How you doing, Steve?" she asked, stopping at his seat. As he always did, he paused before answering, keeping his face turned from hers for a moment while he considered.

  "Fine," he said. "Though I'm n
ot sure this is what you want." He held up a piece of thick white paper with a human face on it. No surprises here. What you saw was what you got. She laughed, and moved back to the front of the class.

  "Anyone need help?" she asked, turning the music down. "Ready to wrap it up for now?"

  Maria, at the back, called out, "What do we do with these things?"

  "You talk to them," Jaguar said. "Ask what they have to say about you."

  "We can't," Steven said, shaking his head. "In our group's religion, that would be idolatry."

  She gazed over at him. "Really? How so?"

  He did not quite roll his eyes at her, but she could tell he wanted to. Katia spoke up.

  "That's not true, Steven. Idolatry is when you worship something false."

  Steve looked at her, surprised. "It's a false image," he said, pointing to her mask.

  "Mine's not," she replied. "Is yours?"

  Someone in the back of the class said, "Ooooh. Cut him down."

  "That's an interesting distinction you're making," Jaguar noted. "How a group defines idolatry says a lot about how they'll run their lives."

  She turned from him to Katia. "What makes your mask real, Katia?" she asked.

  Katia stared down at the face she'd created, then back at Jaguar. "Because this is who I am?"

  "That's not fair," Steven said, voice loud and high. Katia startled.

  The room became hushed. Jaguar turned a neutral face to him. "Why not?" she said.

  "You're asking us to assume a belief in spirits and soul and all that crap. What if we don't believe that? It's not fair to make us believe it."

  "I'm asking you to name what's sacred in you, and make it into a mask. For a grade," she reminded him. He subsided into silence. Katia leaned toward him and put a hand on his shoulder. Jaguar, watching, sighed.

  "Hey, how do you like this music?" she asked as an idea occurred to her.

  A ripple of approval went through the class.

  "Would you like it if I brought the musicians here, to talk to you about music as a container for the sacred?" It was, she knew, the one area where they felt the spirit move them. Inside music.