by Jill Smith
The man shrugs. “Depends on how quick you give us answers.”
“I don’t want to,” Imms says.
“We want you to,” Sandy-hair replies. Dark-hair nudges Sandy’s ribs.
“What would B think if he knew you were giving us trouble?” Dark-hair asks.
Imms doesn’t know. B hates when Imms goes to NRCSE. But he doesn’t like when Imms makes trouble.
“That’s right,” Sandy hair says. “I wonder if you’re getting to be too much for the captain to handle.”
Imms goes with them. They drive a blue car, which smells too sweet. A cardboard strawberry hangs from the rearview mirror.
The men lead him to a part of NRCSE where they have to use their thumbs to get through doors. They go down a clean white hallway lined with numbered doors. One door is ajar, and looking in Imms sees what looks like a bedroom with dark blue carpet and dingy walls. They turn right at the end of the hall, and the second man pushes open a heavy door with his shoulder.
The room they enter is darker than the psychologist’s office or Dr. Hwong’s office. Its walls are large blocks painted a shiny flesh color. One table is in the center with a metal chair. The first man tells Imms to sit. The chair grinds against the floor as he moves it. The other, the quiet one, has a gun, and keeps putting a hand to his hip, to draw attention to it. Imms tries not to be nervous. He wishes he’d called B.
“We’re heading up the investigation of the Byzantine fire,” Sandy says. “We have a few questions for you.”
Now Imms can’t help but be nervous. He has already answered questions about the fire, many times. Why do they need to interview him again?
“It’s very important that you tell the truth, Imms. Do you understand that?”
He nods.
“If you don’t, bad things can happen. You need to tell the truth, even if you didn’t tell it before. Even if you think it will get you or someone else in trouble. Okay?”
Imms doesn’t like the way the man talks to him, as though Imms is stupid or a child. “Okay.”
The investigator starts by asking Imms what he was doing in the lab before the fire started. Imms has answered this question before. He tells them Joele was talking to him. They make Imms tell them what questions Joele asked him. B has prepared him for this. He tries not to recite his answers too perfectly, though, because B said that will make people just as suspicious as if he doesn’t answer at all. The questions get harder. The man wants to know how far away Imms was from Joele. What the spark looked like coming out of the wire. How Joele reacted. How she moved. What her face was like.
Imms uses what he remembers of Joele’s reaction to having the fire on her clothes. It hurts to remember that, and he wraps an arm around himself. Pretends it’s B’s arm. The investigator wants to know what’s wrong. What was Joele to him? Just a human, right?
“I didn’t like seeing her hurt,” Imms says.
“Why didn’t you save her?” Sandy asks. Imms looks at him, surprised and confused. “Why did you save B’s life, but not Joele’s?”
“I tried. I couldn’t find the hatch.”
“Yet you found it when you got B off the ship.”
“I found it.” Imms echoes the man’s words. “But she was already dead.”
“You were sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“But not sure?”
Imms shakes his head.
“You knew B was still alive, though.”
“Yes. He was just sleeping. I mean, passed out.”
“He tried to rescue Vir.” The man doesn’t say it like it’s a question, but he seems to expect an answer.
“Yes.”
“Why not you?” the man asks. “You left Joele to rescue him, but he didn’t try to rescue you.”
This is not true, and Imms wants to say so. B did rescue him. B is brave, braver than anyone in a book. And B loves him. Loved him.
“Vir was more important.”
“Why?”
“She was human.”
“What did Vir do, during the fire?”
“Nothing. She sat there.”
“Just sat there. She didn’t move, or yell for help?”
“No.”
“Did B instruct you on how to answer questions about the fire?”
Imms isn’t sure how to answer this one. He shakes his head.
“He didn’t coach you at all?”
“No.”
Sandy glances at the pad of paper Dark-hair is writing on. He tilts his head. Looks back at Imms. “Imms, you have a history of rebellious behavior. There was the park incident. And I heard you went swimming in the river and left your designated area. Is this true?” He steps toward Imms.
“I didn’t know how far away I’d gotten.”
Sandy is almost behind him. His voice comes over Imms’s shoulder.
“Are you sure you’re telling the truth, Imms? Think carefully.”
“Yes.”
“You’re telling the truth about all of it? The fire? The rescue?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit,” Sandy says calmly.
“What?”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe you.” Sandy motions to Dark-hair, who gets up. The two turn to leave.
“Where are you going?” Imms asks.
“To get a snack,” Sandy says. “I hope you’re ready to tell the truth when we come back.” They shut the door.
Imms stands and paces. He needs to talk to B.
B must not know he’s here after all. B wouldn’t let the NRCSuckers come to the house and take him. He would have told Imms first. Once again, Imms has been stupid. He has thought like a Silver, not a human.
He needs to get out of here. He tries the door, but it’s locked. No number pad to open it. No windows. No hatch in the floor. He paces until he’s exhausted then sits in a corner. How long will they keep him here? He tries yelling, but the sound stays in the room with him. Maybe the men will call B. Maybe B will get worried and come looking for him. Maybe B is too angry to want him back.
He shouldn’t be here. He hasn’t done anything wrong. He has tried to be good since coming to Earth, but he has only caused trouble. He could have stayed on his planet. It would have been boring, lonely, but at least he’d never have gotten into a mess like this.
It is B’s mess. B was never as strong as he pretended to be. B won’t find him, won’t rescue him here, because B doesn’t have the power to protect Imms from NRCSE. Imms sees that in a nasty burst of clarity. Imms has been tricked. Tricked into coming to Earth. Tricked into believing he’s human. He is not. He is something for humans to watch, to laugh at, to cut into. To fuck.
He feels it. The spark. His weak version of anger, half real, half pretended. It heats his whole body, pounds in his head. He is sick of feeling wounded. He is sick of being protected. He is tired of being told what to do. By the time the investigators return, he is not afraid of them. He looks them in the eye, looks at them with such hatred that Sandy stops on his way toward Imms and takes a step back. Then he grins.
“Don’t like the chair, huh?”
“I don’t like you,” Imms replies.
Sandy turns to his partner. “How about that?”
Imms digs his fingers into his knees.
“Sit down. Let’s finish our chat.”
“Fuck you,” Imms says. Bridique would be proud.
“That’s not very nice, Imms.” Sandy steps toward the corner. Imms growls like Lady. The man stops. “Are you going to come to the table? Or do I have to get you?”
Imms stands but doesn’t leave the corner. Both men approach him from different sides. Sandy reaches for him. Imms spits in his face.
Sandy stops to wipe his cheek, and Dark-hair grabs Imms’s arm. Imms kicks him in the shin. Dark-hair grunts but doesn’t let go. He pushes Imms against the wall and throws his elbow into Imms’s stomach.
“It’s okay,” Sandy says, still wiping spit from his eye. “Let him go. We’ll come back later.�
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They leave the room again. Imms keeps an arm around his middle, trying to contain the pain. He is still too angry to worry about the consequences of what he’s done—if he’ll be taken away from B, kept at NRCSE forever.
They leave Imms in the room for a long time. He gets hungry. Misses B, and Lady, Brid, and Mary. Alone sits beside him, and his hatred of Alone is some small, strange measure of company.
When the door opens again, it is not the two men. It’s Kelly Hatchell, B’s boss, whom Imms met once. She’s accompanied by a NRCSucker Imms doesn’t know. She asks if he’s all right. He nods uncertainly. She seems uncomfortable, like she doesn’t know how to act around him. She tells him to follow her and leads him up to the above ground part of NRCSE. The other NRCSuckers walks behind them. Probably to keep Imms from running, which he wants to do. What if Kelly Hatchell is leading him to a place worse than the room?
Bridique is waiting near the public entrance. She looks Imms over, mutters a thanks to Kelly Hatchell. She takes Imms’s hand and leads him out of the building. It’s dark outside.
“They hurt you?” Brid asks as they drive home.
“No,” he says.
She slaps the steering wheel. “People are no good. No good!” she yells at a driver who passes on her left.
Imms stares out the window.
“They weren’t going to let you go. Don and Dave gave me some lawyer terms to throw at them. I made them let me talk to Hatch. I wouldn’t leave.”
“I was fine. You shouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Where’s B?”
“At home, Imms. At fucking home.” She glances at him. Her voice gets quieter. “He’s worried. Don’t think he isn’t. He just—”
“I didn’t need him,” Imms says. “They weren’t hurting me.”
Brid spends the rest of the drive talking about the new cheetah cub at Rose. She pulls into B’s drive and starts to get out of the car. “Don’t come in,” Imms says. He doesn’t want to witness another fight between Brid and B. Doesn’t want to feel himself tugged back and forth as they shout at each other.
Brid nods. “Punch him where his balls should be for me.” She backs away, her car’s headlights throwing Imms’s shadow onto the garage. Imms stares at the house for a moment then walks up the drive.
B is in the kitchen. He gets up when Imms enters. Slowly, like his knees hurt. Imms thinks B is afraid of him. “You all right?” B asks.
“Fine,” Imms says. “Hungry.” He goes to the pantry and gets pasta out.
“There’s some leftover—”
“I’ve got it,” Imms says. He puts water on to boil.
“I’m sorry this happened. I wanted to go there and break down the fucking doors, but I didn’t think they’d keep you long. I thought it would just be a few questions, and that if I went there it would make things worse.”
Imms doesn’t answer.
“What’d they ask you?”
Imms shrugs. “Same old stuff.”
“For nine hours?”
“They took a break for snacks.”
B sighs. “Come here.”
Imms wonders if B knows how wispy his concern sounds, how it dissolves in the air without ever surrounding Imms, engulfing him, making him feel safe.
Imms stays by the stove. “How was your day?”
B hesitates. “Awful.”
Imms breaks handfuls of spaghetti noodles and throws them into the pot. B leaves the room. Imms takes a deep breath and lets it out. He wishes B had made him come to him. On the Silver Planet, B seemed to have so much power. Now Imms can knock him over just by holding still.
Chapter Thirty-Three
B has packed a bag. It’s not much—a foolish attempt at foresight, like a Boy Scout’s wilderness survival kit. In case he and Imms have to run. Just knowing it’s there helps. It’s a constant reminder life could shift at any second and dump them somewhere unexpected. Because if the NRCSuckers are going to come after Imms, if they’re going to take him and keep him for hours at a time. If they can’t let this investigation die, then B will redeem himself and the promise he made to Imms. He’ll protect him.
They’ll run.
B wants to tell Brid. He’s afraid to tell his mother and upset her, but Brid might understand. His paranoia, his guilt. Vir’s voice, singing him a fucking lullaby every night. She might understand that he needs to protect Imms, because he made a promise. Because he can’t fail everyone in this world.
When B was ten, he ran away from school at recess. He wandered for a while, in love with a quiet world where most people were trapped in their offices or classrooms, but he was free. He remembers the sky that day, lint gray with a couple of patches of blue that looked like spills, accidents. He could almost imagine that no one would miss him, no one would find him, he would suffer no consequences for his actions. That this world would always be open to him. That he’d find ways to survive in it without anyone’s help, and that his family would continue to love him but would accept he was gone. Wouldn’t grieve for him.
The police eventually found him and drove him home. The school had trouble getting hold of his mother at work, but by the time B and the officers reached the house, Mary had heard what had happened and was on her way. Brid was already home, and their neighbor, Mrs. Anders, was sitting with her in the living room. As soon as B had seen Brid, her pale face and huge eyes, her mingled anger and relief, he’d been terrified. His life, his actual life where he was bound to his family, to school, to karate lessons, to mowing the lawn to earn his allowance—that was all suddenly more real than the silent world he’d been king of that afternoon. He didn’t want to see his mother’s face when she got home. It would be ten times worse than Brid’s.
But Brid sat with him and held his hand. “It’s not the end of the world,” she’d said.
Where is that Brid now? The one who could tell him the world wasn’t ending and make him believe it? Torn between the freedom he wanted and the past he was afraid to let go of, he’s wound up in an unhappy limbo where he doesn’t really know his own life anymore. He has the outline of it, but nothing colors it, nothing fills it. Except Imms.
And he’s failed Imms. Failed him in ways that haven’t even made it past the surface to show themselves to B. He’s done something strange to trust, made a mangled sort of event of it. Heroes in movies can sell tickets to their promises: Watch me save the world. But B neglects people so casually. Because letting them fall is easier than devoting his whole self to catching them. When you live in one big dream about the future, you can justify your disdain for the present. And the dream of the future ends at achievement, at gratification—it never goes as far as consequences.
Somewhere the man who dug a Silver out of the ground and took him into his room instead of the lab exists. Who fell for the Silver moment by moment, who lived in the danger and the suddenness of that love. Who envisioned a future that simply included staying together and staying safe, and didn’t take into account the strain of everyday existence. And somewhere the boy who walked away from the playground and into the world he wanted still exists. Who didn’t take into account how much his absence would frighten those he cared about.
It often takes as much courage to do the foolish thing as it does to do the right one.
But every day that passes without Hatch calling B into her office, without anyone coming to cart Imms away, makes B feel stupider for packing a bag.
*
Something strange is happening to Imms’s heart. Dr. Hwong says it just circles, day in and day out, like a fish in a bowl. It doesn’t seem unhealthy. Just…bored. That’s what B thinks when Dr. Hwong tells them. Imms’s heart is bored.
By midwinter, Imms has slipped away somewhere. He lies on the couch, not reading, not watching TV, hardly moving. He eats less than usual. B wakes in the night sometimes to find Imms’s side of the bed cold.
“It’s snowing,” B says one day. “Want to go to the park? I’l
l brave it if we can get coffee afterwards.”
“No, thanks,” Imms says quietly.
“You’ve got to get off that couch,” B says. “It’s not healthy.”
Imms slides off the couch and onto the floor, where he sits with his back against the couch. B snorts. “Smart ass.”
Imms doesn’t look at him. “Write about it in your report.”
“You’re not helping yourself, or anybody, by acting like this.”
To B’s consternation, Imms buries his head in his arms. His shoulders shake.
B tilts his head, torn between irritation and a desire to comfort. A helplessness washes over him, brutal in its heaviness. He heads for the bedroom.
Imms stays on the couch and watches a special on the nature channel about ocean migrations. B can hear the gentle voice narrating the journey of thousands of cow-nosed stingrays from the Gulf of Mexico to New England. Imms must fall asleep, because he never comes to bed, and B doesn’t go out to get him.
*
In early March, NRCSE appoints a redheaded woman named Scofield to meet with B and discuss Imms’s future on Earth.
“We understand that with your schedule, it must be awfully hard to look after Imms,” Scofield says. “We’d like to perhaps work out an arrangement where Imms would live part-time with a series of handlers.”
“I thought the goal was to make him more independent, not less,” B says.
“The long-term goal will be to set Imms up in a place of his own, then observe what choices he makes when living free of human influence.”
“Free of human influence? Where’s he gonna live, Walden Pond?”
“Relatively free,” Scofield amends. “We want to know, what will he eat? What will he do for fun? That sort of thing.”
“He makes those decisions right now.”
“We think Imms could use a little variety in his interactions with humans. He’s become very comfortable with the small social circle you’ve created for him—”
“His family.”
“Why not make Imms part of multiple families? Let him experience more.”