by daisy harris
Q-ter rolled his eyes, sassing Frank like he always did. “Pul-leez.” Then the kid produced a small box. It looked homemade and pieced together out of spare parts, but it had plugs on both ends and Q-ter connected it between the extension cord and the microwave. “This should do the trick.”
Frank folded his arms, his expression wary. “When did you build a voltage amplifier?”
“When Ben left to pick up the food. I knew we’d need it.” Q-ter placed a plate of food inside and programmed the machine to cook. “You don’t trust me with anything, do you?”
Kuri noticed that Q-ter was smiling as he said it, proud because Frank was impressed. She couldn’t begrudge the kid his moment in the sun. He was just as much a product of their big, weird family as she was. But if they were a family, what was she? The dutiful wife? The black-sheep daughter?
Somehow all their interactions felt different to her, now that she had her memories. Q-ter’s excitement seemed annoying rather than endearing, and Frank’s paternalism made Kuri feel trapped instead of safe. She loved her friends, and inside Kuri knew that she even loved Frank, but her muscles jumped as if they were urging her to run, to get out of this same old routine. If things were going to be different in her life—and they had to be different—she couldn’t stand to be around the same group of people she’d known for so many years.
Ben unscrewed a bottle of wine and poured it into some plastic cups. Then he served everyone as if he were a waiter at a fancy restaurant.
“A toast.” Frank lifted his cup. “Thank you, everyone, for pitching in with the move.”
Emotion boiled up in Kuri’s chest. She couldn’t be part of this—couldn’t sit and listen with a smile on her face and let her makeshift family wrap her up in their arms and hold her so close she couldn’t change. So as Shani and Royce led a raucous chorus of floor-thumping and shouts of “hell yeah”, Kuri slipped away as quietly as she could and headed to the bathroom.
She pressed her back to the wall, breathing through her nose and trying not to get drawn in as Frank’s deep voice echoed through the empty space. Kuri opened the tap and splashed water on her face. She had to get out of there, and for the first time Kuri desperately wished she had a driver’s license. The oddity in her program that made her suck at driving had never seemed worth addressing before, but suddenly Kuri realized how screwed-up it was that she relied on other people for all her transportation. She was completely powerless and at the mercy of Frank and the rest of the team, and she wondered why she’d never noticed before.
Kuri peered at herself in the mirror, her expression determined. Her huge eyes narrowed and grew steely. Her chin slid forward as her jaw tightened. She knew what she had to do—get away from her friends and forge a life for herself. And though the day had been a whirlwind of emotions, at that moment Kuri felt completely calm. She didn’t have to wait for Frank to fix her or for her friends to make it better. Kuri could do those things herself. And for the first time when she saw her own face Kuri didn’t see a Kewpie doll. She saw a pissed-off woman. And oddly, one who didn’t look at all like the type of girl men would hoot at as they passed in the street.
She stalked out of the bathroom and back to where the group was eating dinner. Kuri picked up her plate and shoveled the last few bites of liver into her mouth. Frank was rubbing his jaw, and talking in those sexy low tones that so drew her in, but Kuri blocked the sound. She cared about him, so much her chest ached, but she’d relied on him too much for too long.
Barbie walked over to Frank and gave him a big hug. The party swirled around Kuri, though she felt as if she were watching it play out on a stage.
“You okay?” Frank checked her eyes. “D’you need to take the other half of that pill?”
She thought about it for a second, feeling around in her mind for fear, panic. Kuri felt fine, but she didn’t want to have to rely on Frank and the others to dole out pills if she needed them in the future. “I’m fine, but give me the bottle to take home.” Kuri didn’t wait to see his look of concern. She knew Frank was going to argue—to say that she should wait for him or Q-ter to dispense drugs like pharmacists. However, she’d been working around the ZU’s medical facilities for over forty years. Kuri was more than capable of determining the proper dose of benzodiazepines.
Kuri took the bottle Frank held out for her, and then rubbed her arms. “It’s freezing in here.” With a belly full of food, the air chilled her even further.
“Got it.” Q-ter hopped up from the ground and returned a second later with a space heater. He held up the plug victoriously and then inserted it into his box. The group of them watched as the heater whirred to life. A few seconds later, it sputtered to a stop. The overhead lights blinked once, and then went out.
“Q-ter,” Frank growled. The team burst into laughter, drowning out whatever else Frank said. Then someone shouted, “We were done anyway,” and Kuri listened as people dug flashlights out of boxes to clean up.
Kuri took the opportunity to grab her duffel bag and ease toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Frank called to her from across the room.
“Just grabbing my sweater out of Shani’s car. I’ll be right back.” Kuri hid the duffel bag behind her back. Between the boxes and the dark room, she hoped Frank couldn’t make out what she was holding.
“Okay.” Frank’s grumbling voice made it clear he wanted her to take someone with her, but everyone was busy and his arms were full of plates. “Just come right back inside, ’kay?”
“Sure thing, Frank.” Kuri slipped out the door and before Frank could change his mind and come after her, she hurried down the street. Lights flickered over gas stations, restaurants and businesses in the distance and she hoped she could get to a phone to call a cab before anyone thought to look for her.
She got lucky though, because a cab pulled up next to her, slowing. The driver rolled down the window. “Need a ride?”
“Yes, sure.” She opened the door and tossed her duffel bag inside. On any previous day, Kuri would have been nervous getting in a car with an unknown man, but somehow she didn’t think she was going to glitch again anytime soon. It was weird, because she wasn’t sure how she knew, but some part of her understood that the glitches had served a purpose. They’d protected her from her memories. But now that everything was flooding back—the good and the bad—she was fairly certain her mind wouldn’t trick her into forgetting again. “I’m heading to Capitol Hill. But the train station after that.”
The taxi pulled away and Kuri mentally calculated how much time she could spend grabbing her essentials out of the apartment before the rest of the team thought to look for her at home. If she only spent five minutes she figured she could get in and out before anyone stopped her. And then…
She blew out a breath and looked out the window. There was a whole world laid out in front of her, and unlike some steins, Kuri could pass perfectly well for human. Kuri lifted her chin, watching the other cars pass. For the first time in possibly ever, Kuri felt like Frank had been right—she could be anything she wanted.
Chapter Nine
One week later…
“And you’re sure you don’t know where she might have gone, Shan?” Frank’s voice was little more than a snarl. He kept scanning the map on his screen, rolling his mouse around, expanding his search to wider areas. He gripped the phone hard enough to strain the plastic case.
A long sigh sounded over the phone. “I don’t know anything but what she said in the note. That she needed some time, that she’d call when she got settled…”
Frank listened to her breathe on the phone, feeling completely lost. He pinched his forehead between his thumb and forefinger, fighting the panicky headache building in his temples. “I can’t believe I let her leave. Shit, I should’ve made her take one of us with her.”
“Frank…” Her voice was slow, measured, but tinged with frustration. “She is a grown woman. It’s not your place to ‘let’ or ‘forbid’
her from doing anything.”
He wanted to argue—to point out that Kuri was sick, unstable and incapable of doing a lot of things most of them took for granted. But Frank stopped himself. Each point sounded more patronizing than the last. In the end, all he could say was, “I think she dug out her GPS.”
It would have been simple for her to do, and probably not hugely painful. Frank had inserted the tiny chips under his team’s skin on their upper arms. Still, the thought of her cutting into her own flesh to escape him made Frank shudder.
“If you can’t see her on your super-spy map, I guess so.”
“Oh.” Frank didn’t know what else to say. He peered around his office, realizing he didn’t even have a picture of her. Since none of his team aged, he’d never seen the point of capturing them on camera. “Hey, Shan?” Frank wiped at his face, scrubbing his feelings away.
“Yeah?” Shani’s voice was soft and kind, so unlike her normal harsh tones that it made the whole thing seem more final.
“You, um, wouldn’t happen to have a picture of her, would ya?” Frank said it offhand, planning to say he wanted to use it for a “lost person” ad if Shani pushed.
But Shani didn’t ask any questions. Instead she only told him, “Yeah. I’ll send you a few.” She must have had them on hand, because Frank heard the soft dinging of files loading onto his phone.
Two and a half months later…
Kuriko stepped out of the office building and into the bright Spokane sunshine. It was still cold on the other side of the mountains from Seattle, but at least she didn’t have to live with the constant rain and gloom.
“Hey, Amy.” One of her coworkers ran after her, calling the fake name she’d used to get her data entry job. “You going to the Christmas party?” The young man came to a stop in front of her, breathing out huffs of steam in the December air. He was cute—skinny with brown hair and blue eyes.
Kuri hadn’t had a flashback in three weeks and hadn’t glitched since before she left Seattle, but even if she was ready to date, the twenty-year-old human wasn’t her type. “No. I’m thinking about maybe heading home to see family.” It was the first lie that came to mind, but Kuri couldn’t help but entertain the idea. She hadn’t spoken to Shani or the guys since she left.
“Oh.” The guy looked at his feet. “Are you taking a holiday week, then? Or will you be around for New Year’s?”
She smiled, trying to let him down as nicely as possible. “I don’t know yet.” She’d have to work in the interim between the Christmas and New Year’s holiday closures, since Kuri wasn’t eligible for any vacation time yet. “Listen, I have to go.” She looked at her watch, urging the guy to take the hint.
“Oh. Oh yeah, I’m sorry.” He retreated to the office building, his shoulders rolled forward in defeat.
Though Kuri felt a little sorry for him, she was proud that she hadn’t run away. Her work with Dr. Sheila was paying off. She looked at her watch again, realizing she only had ten minutes to get across town. Kuri hurried to her car.
Eight minutes and fifty seconds later, Kuri pulled into the strip mall where her psychiatrist had an office. She rolled her neck and focused on relaxing all of her muscles. Then she counted backward from twenty, using her most recent relaxation technique.
Dr. Sheila never made her remember stuff on purpose. According to the therapist, dredging up old memories didn’t help Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in most cases. Instead, the doctor had referred Kuri to someone for an antidepressant prescription, and was helping her explore new thoughts and feelings. Dr. Sheila called the process decoupling. Her goal was to help Kuri separate ideas about sex from the triggers that set off her panic cascade.
Kuri stepped into the waiting room and found Dr. Sheila’s office door already open. With a fresh roll of her shoulders, she stepped inside the cozy therapy room and settled onto Sheila’s couch.
“Hello, Kuri.” Dr. Sheila Francis was a middle-aged woman with long gray hair and a nouveau-hippie wardrobe. She smiled kindly. “How’s your day?”
“Fine. Actually, good.” Kuri told her about the guy who’d asked her out at work and how she hadn’t gotten upset.
“I’m glad to hear that you can turn someone down calmly.”
She knew a “but” was going to attach itself to Dr. Sheila’s words.
“But, I wonder how you’d feel if you had accepted the date.”
Kuri’s skin pricked up. Goose bumps rose on the back of her neck. Much too fast, she replied, “I didn’t want to.”
“Hmmm.” Sheila leaned back in her chair. She sat with her hands folded, waiting for Kuri to go on.
Kuri wanted to play the waiting game and refuse to answer, but she knew from experience that it was a losing battle. Rolling her eyes, Kuri said, “Really. He’s not my type. He’s a nice guy, but I honestly didn’t want to go out with him.”
Sheila nodded, less like she agreed and more like she was sarcastically thinking, “Uh-huh”.
“Really.” Kuri folded her legs up on the couch. Sheila always said that was her “safety” posture, but she didn’t care.
“And that other man—Frank. He was your type?” She lifted a wise eyebrow. Sheila had been trying to coax Kuri into talking about Frank since they started these sessions.
“Yeah.” Truth was, Kuri thought about him more than she wanted to admit. Every time she saw a man she might consider handsome, she measured him against Frank King. Sure, lots of guys were more attractive than Frank objectively, but none had his soft brown eyes, or his kind and sure touch. She hated and loved thinking about him in equal measure. But there was no denying that Kuri, when she could think of sex at all, still wanted him. “Yeah, he was all right.” She could still feel his hot breath on her neck, his hands pinning her wrists. The memories were as upsetting as they were erotic.
“You’re blushing.” Sheila’s lips curled into a smile. “So I take it you can think about the sex you had with him now?”
Kuri exhaled. “Yeah. It doesn’t trigger flashbacks anymore.” That alone was a huge accomplishment. Kuri’d thought it would take years for her to be able to remember even kissing Frank without the thought morphing into a horrible, nightmare-like memory.
“So what’s the problem?” Sheila watched, waited, even when it took Kuri a solid five minutes to come up with an answer.
“I guess I’m mad at him.” As the words came out, she realized their truth. Kuri wasn’t angry they’d had sex, or even that they’d gotten a little rough. It was… Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with what they did in bed. It was the way Frank always had to be in charge of everything and how he treated her like a kid, or a patient, but never like an equal. She didn’t know if she could ever feel confident and in control around someone who refused to let her function like an adult.
She thought Sheila would ask Kuri to explain. But as always, Sheila had a more insightful question. “And he was your boss?”
Kuri thought about how to describe Frank. Boss didn’t seem the right word. Savior, maybe? Father and keeper and employer all wrapped together. Even thinking about it—how he wanted to be her boss but also her lover—made icky shivers roll over her skin. How could he expect her to love him like a woman when he treated her like a helpless little girl? It made Kuri so angry she wanted to drive back to Seattle just so she could storm away again. “Yeah.” Without any better way to describe it, Kuri said, “He was my boss.”
“And what was the plan for after you two became intimate? Were you going to leave your job?” She asked it completely devoid of judgment and Kuri loved her for it. Most people, if you told them you slept with your boss, assumed he was a lecherous ass. Of course, none of those people knew Frank. He was one of the most selfless people Kuri knew.
“No. Frank wouldn’t have made me quit. Totally the opposite.” She chuckled to herself, imagining what it would have been like to tell Frank that she needed to get a different job. Somehow, imagining the conversation led to tears prickling behind her eyes.
Kuri shook her head. “It’s not like that. It’s not like he would have blackmailed me, or refused to give me a recommendation.” Kuri snorted, thinking about the type of corporate dynamics people usually imagined in these types of situations. The Zombie Underground, the big, loving family with all the attendant bonds and history and relationships, couldn’t have been more different. Though as Sheila’s smile bored into her, Kuri wondered if maybe the ZU was exactly the same.
“Did you want to keep working for him even if you were lovers?” Sheila tilted her head.
“It wasn’t like that. I mean, he was in charge of the organization, but it was a non-profit. We were funded by donations, so really he was just the one who organized things.” She heard herself trying to defend Frank, avoiding the crux of Sheila’s question.
“Hmmm.” Sheila waited.
She waited so long that Kuri finally crossed her arms and blurted, “No. No, I didn’t want to keep working for him if we were sleeping together.” And it wasn’t just that—she didn’t want him tracking her GPS, or telling her where to live. It was a subtle kind of hold he had over her, but it was power nonetheless. And Kuri had been powerless in her sex life too long.
Sheila nodded, her smile growing as if she were proud. “There’s a reason why people don’t normally date their employers.” Sheila’s eyes darted to the side, as if she wasn’t sure whether to say what she wanted to next.
It was such an unusual action for the therapist that Kuri felt herself lean forward in her seat. “Yeah, I can see that.” Kuri thought about how conflicted she’d been lately over the fact that Frank had restrained her. She’d liked it fine at the time, but in retrospect the memory had made her uneasy. So—just as an exercise—she let herself imagine how she would feel if Frank was just a guy she knew—an equal. She pictured them in bed together, him gripping her wrists as he drove into her. Kuri’s body felt as if it had burst into flames.