by J. P. Smythe
“I do,” Tom says.
“Because you’ve been told you do. You’ve been told that this is what you want. They talk to us like we’re children. I do not want to be here. I do not want to sleep here. I do not want to stay here, but they will not let us leave. They say we want to be here, that we are better. They say that they are telling us the truth. But I think that they’re lying to us.”
“You’re just pissed because you aren’t learning as fast as the rest of us,” Tom says. “Not my fault you’re slow.”
Polly hits him. She’s so fast I barely see it. Her hand is suddenly in his gut, buried in the belly of his suit, and then he’s winded, on his knees, sobbing. He’s desperately trying to take in breath, but it’s hard with the heat, with the air as thin as it is. I help him by putting the bit from his mask into his mouth, pushing his helmet back onto his head. He rolls back onto the floor, clutching himself.
Polly doesn’t say anything. She steps back. Her face is blank. Her partner runs up and bends down to help Tom to his feet. Tom’s coughing now and there’s blood bubbling between his lips, pooling in the mask near his chin. Washing out the mud that was in there first.
In Polly’s hand, I see a shard of something sharp. She opens her fingers and drops it. Tom’s suit is a mess of blood soaking through the fabric.
“Help me!” Polly’s partner screams and I do, as do the others—lifting Tom up, supporting him as best we can. He sobs, and in his helmet the sobs echo around, amplified and muffled at the same time. We carry him back, his weight immense.
Polly walks behind us. I step away from Tom as we get closer to town, as he starts to shake—trembling and twitching—and the others begin to run with him. They head to the compound, bursting through the doors, howling for help.
“I did that,” Polly says. She’s quiet and speaks so slowly, every word carefully chosen. She doesn’t get anything wrong, though; she’s just measured. Her own breathing is hard, so I help her with her helmet, with her mask. We put them to one side and we go indoors. There’s a trail of blood on the floor and the sounds of panic from further in. I take my outer suit off and I wipe my sweat down with the towels left by the door. I’ll shower, but not now. I feel like Polly needs me, and I don’t want to leave her alone. “I have hurt him,” she says, finally.
I say that he might be dead. From the look on her face, in her eyes, I can tell that she hadn’t even considered that she might have gone that far, done that much damage. She takes off her own suit and I notice her arm. It’s been cut off just below the elbow, and there’s a replacement, an augment that pulses with wet-looking metal and skin grafts where it meets her flesh. My brain hurts. It swims, clouding my vision. She wipes her forehead then the skin on that arm, and she flexes the metal fingers that held the shiv that cut Tom. She walks away from me down the corridor, both hands raised, as if she’s surrendering to something that she knows they’ll want her to pay for.
I don’t see Polly or Jonah for the next few days. I keep my head down and I work outside with new people who either don’t want to talk or insist on asking me about who I am, how long I’ve been here, if I remember anything from who I was before.
I tell them nothing—that’s all I feel I have to offer.
Polly is being held in solitary, go the whispers. She’s been taken off for more drastic teaching. She’s not quite right, not working with the system here. She’s been here six months and she should be—the phrase that people seem to use a lot, far too much—revised by now. I don’t even know what that means. I feel healthy. I feel fine. Even as I look at my scars, I can see that I’m not ill. There’s no redness to the flesh anymore, nothing that hasn’t healed up. My eyesight isn’t good, so they give me glasses and I wear them when they ask me to, when they remind me to. They say that they’ll fix my eyes so I don’t have to wear glasses someday. I wonder what else they’ll try to fix, or maybe they already have.
Gibson tries to start as we always do: a summary of what I’ve been doing, how I’ve been feeling. I give him what he wants, because that’s surely the fastest way out of the meeting. I keep thinking about Polly. That spills over into my story. I tell him that I’ve been wondering about her, where she is. I was working with her, the day that she stabbed Tom.
“Regrettable,” Gibson says. “Sometimes people are uncontrollable. You saw what happened. How did that affect you?”
I tell him that I didn’t notice it until it had happened. I don’t say how it made me feel. Honestly, I’m not really sure. I felt dull, that’s the best way to describe it.
“Did you think that she was right to attack him?”
He didn’t do anything, I say.
“No, he didn’t. Not that we could see or hear.” We. We could see or hear. “But there are often so many other things going on underneath the surface of us, aren’t there? What he was saying to Polly, maybe that affected her in a way that’s different than how it affected you. And me, as well. Maybe I would have reacted differently.” He smiles, the corners of his mouth gently pleased with the thought that’s come into his head. “What was the more truthful moment, do you think—what Tom was saying or how Polly reacted?”
Polly’s reaction. I don’t even have to think about it.
“Because it was from her gut,” he says, trying to be reassuring. “So, which was more interesting to you? Which made you ask more questions?”
Polly, again.
“Because it was so violent, so senseless,” he says, pleased that he knew the answer. That I am as predictable as he would hope.
I tell him no. I tell him that it was because I didn’t see where the blade came from. It felt familiar, I say, watching Polly stab him. He glances up at me, and at my hands. Then he sits back, folding his own hands into his lap.
“Chan, what do you remember about where you come from?”
I tell him that I don’t remember anything. I’m not sure how true that is. Faces, names, those words in that voice that digs deep into me and makes me feel sad and hopeful at the same time. But I don’t tell him that.
“That’s good. That’s good. This is where you come from now, it’s the truth. And this is where Polly comes from, and Tom. You’re like brothers and sisters, really. That’s it, all in this together, in this new beginning. We won’t lie to you about that. But you have to remember: What Polly did, that was wrong. It wasn’t here; it wasn’t the person that she is now, you get that?”
I nod.
“I would hate to see anything thrown away, from her or from you. This is progression for you. You’ve been here such a short amount of time and you’ve made such great strides. I see excellence in you, Chan.”
And with that, the session is over. Waiting outside to go in is Jonah. He smiles at me as I pass, then digs into his pockets, hands me another note, and then he rushes inside. I don’t read the note until I’m back in my room. His handwriting is this beautiful, delicate style—joined up and looped around like one long, unbroken trail of ink.
I want to see you, the note says. Find me.
“Time for another trial,” the guard says. He leads me down the corridor, letting me walk a little ways in front of him. I know where we’re going.
I ask him how long he’s worked here and he seems surprised.
“Inmates usually don’t take an interest in us,” he says. “Not saying it’s not welcomed, but you’re pretty much the first to ever ask me.” He pronounces everything drawled, his words sloppy, losing letters, changing others. Intres, priddy, ax. “Three years now. Gibson brought me personally. We worked together before.”
I ask where.
“Now that’s a secret. I mean, it’s not, but it is for you. Loose lips sink ships.” We head to the outside, to the shell of the mall. “So this time, you’re just going to look around, okay? You go in there and you see if there’s anything you like the look of. Come back and tell me and we’ll see what we can do.” He folds his arms and stands at a real distance, the stretch of the mall between me and the s
hop. He shoves his hand through the air, like he’s wafting something. “Go on, haven’t got all day,” he says.
The shop door is propped open. Inside, the stock is different. It’s not stuff that I would want, not immediately. There are more expensive things in here—cases with jewels and gold bands. Nothing but shining, glittering gemstones throughout. Bright lights, so bright they’re almost blinding. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I had a stone, once. I remember that. I was given it. I don’t know what happened to it, or where it is now.
“I help you?” the shopkeeper asks. A different one. She’s younger, much younger. Shaky delivery of her lines, a tiny bit too unnatural. Everything rehearsed for show.
I smile, say that I’m okay. She’s uneasy and I don’t want her to be. I wonder if she’s afraid of me, or of something else. Is this a test for her or for me, I wonder. Her nervousness makes me nervous and I feel my hands balling into fists. My nails dig into my palms just enough to hurt.
There’s a noise behind us. Somebody else in the shop. I turn and there’s the butt of a striker in my face. The man holding it is wearing a mask, fully covered, not even a tiny sliver of his skin showing. He’s out of shape, I can see that, but strong. Big arms, big chest, thick neck. Paunch where there shouldn’t be one.
“Get down,” he says. He waves the weapon at the shopkeeper. “Get down, hands behind your head.” The shopkeeper screams, and I—
I react. I grab the end of the striker while it’s pointed away from me, and I yank it down. He’s taller than me by a lot, and his arm bends. I whack his hand with my other fist, and he lets the striker go. He swings for me but I duck away.
I’m acting instinctively. He can’t get close. He’s slow. I know that it doesn’t matter how strong you are when you’re this slow.
I flip the striker and lash out with the end, squeezing it so that it fizzes into life—but it doesn’t, it’s neutered. He moves backward, but I go again, bringing it up into the bottom of his jaw. I hear his teeth clatter together—the crunch of something shifting, giving way—and he howls with his mouth closed, this guttural sound from deep in his throat. I kick him in the knee straight on and there’s another click, another sound of something giving way. I wrap my fist around the striker, using it like reinforcement. I swing it as he stumbles, as he slumps toward the ground—his bad knee shaking until he’s fallen onto it, which probably hurts even more. I slam my other hand into the side of his face. There’s another sharp crack, and he passes out. He falls to the side.
“Jesus Christ!” the shopkeeper screams. The guard runs inside. He checks on the man on the floor, pulls his mask off, puts his hand across his mouth to feel for breath, stabs two fingers at the man’s neck.
“Get help!” he shouts to the shopkeeper, who runs off into the back; I hear garbled words calling for backup, for a doctor. The guard looks up at me. “What the hell did you do?” he asks, but it’s not a real question. He can see what I did. He snatches the striker from my hand and throws it into the dark of the shop.
I leave the building. I feel sick. I watch to see what happens as the medics arrive, as Doctor Gibson runs past. When he leaves ahead of the stretcher shunting the man who tried to attack me and the shopkeeper to the medical center, he stops and stares at me. He doesn’t look disappointed, or pleased, or anything; not really.
I have trouble sleeping for the first time that I can remember. Usually, there’s a very set pattern: I get into bed, lie down, and the lights go off; and I shut my eyes because there’s no sense having them open when all there is to see is the thin green light of the exit signs coming through the cracks in my door. Tonight I do that, but sleep doesn’t happen. I feel myself getting antsy, itching underneath my blanket. I turn from side to side. I open my eyes because I’m not tired. I shut them and they don’t want to stay closed.
So I stand up. I walk around my room, as little space as there is. I press against the walls and I stretch my muscles. This feels good, natural. I work them, exercising them. It feels like something that I need to do, the same burn in them that I felt outside working on the road. I pace when I’m done. I listen to the sounds of others, shouting in their rooms. They lock the doors at night, apparently. I never knew.
There’s a grinding in the walls from the ventilation ducts. Something is going on inside there. I can hear voices if I stretch up and get close enough. I move my bed and I stand on it and listen. They’re far away, distorted by being carried through to me this way. Little more than whispers.
“. . . when they wake up?”
“Just get it done and they won’t even know. It’s nothing.”
“Losing a day isn’t nothing!” That voice is Gibson. I recognize it, even as angry as it sounds now. “We don’t know what effect that will have on them. It’s crucial we deliver every night, you know that.”
“So tomorrow we find out. Nothing we can do. We’ll get it working.”
“See that you do. There’s going to be . . .”
I hear noises in the corridor: guards opening the doors, checking on us. I drag my bed back to where it should be and lie down, shut my eyes. I don’t know why, but I don’t want them to see that I’m awake.
I sleep eventually, but it comes differently than the other nights. It’s like I have to force myself until it almost hurts, my desire to not be awake anymore. Eventually, my eyes slide shut and I feel them becoming harder to open. It’s exhaustion rather than whatever it is every other night that makes me fall asleep. For the first time since I remember being here, sleep feels natural—as if it’s mine.
In the morning, there is no alarm. For the first time since I got here, Gaia doesn’t talk to me. The guards beat on the doors, telling us to wake up. There’s shouting up and down the corridors for us to obey them.
Gibson interviews us all. He asks us to line up one by one (which we’ve never done before) and he spends the day talking to us—about whether we dreamed last night, about what we remember from before. I’m waiting in line and there’s word going around about the sort of questions that he’s posing—giving us situations and asking us how we would react in them, showing pictures and asking us what we can see in them. What we notice.
Jonah rushes up and pushes into the line behind me.
“Last night,” he says. He looks tired. “You had trouble sleeping as well?”
I tell him that we all did. I explain what Gibson’s asking, what’s going on.
“You seem like you’re excited about this,” he says. And I am, I think. I am. I reach for him, for a second. His hand into mine. I don’t know exactly why, but it’s almost unbearably comforting. He squeezes and I squeeze back, and I find myself wishing I could squeeze even harder.
We sit in the chairs, opposite one another, just like always. Gibson is rattled about something. He’s not his usual self. He looks tired and he’s sweating. The air conditioning isn’t working and every room with windows is stiflingly hot. He’s got a fan in here turned on his face, but it’s barely doing anything. They’re letting me sweat, and the chair that I sit in is wet from the backs of those who were here before me.
“Did you sleep well last night?” he asks me, harried voice, twitchy hands.
I did, I tell him. He nods.
“You were moving around, exercising. You moved your bed.”
I ask him how he knows that. I already know the answer. They’re watching me, all the time. But I ask him because I want to know if he’s going to lie to me.
“Just answer the question, Chan. You were awake?”
Yes.
“Good. Just answer me. Makes both our lives easier. No withholding here, remember? So you were awake. Why?”
I was too hot.
“So you exercised.”
Yes.
“Even though you were hot.”
Yes.
“You also looked at the vents.”
To see if they were working yet.
“But they weren’t. So then you went to slee
p.”
Yes.
“And how do you feel today? Different, the same?”
Tired.
“When you finally slept, did you dream?”
I don’t know. I don’t remember.
“But you feel okay? What do you remember?”
I remember yesterday. I remember working on the road. I remember—
“But apart from that. Before this. Do you remember anything?”
No.
“Look at this picture.” He brings up an image on his tablet, black ink on a white background. There are shapes among the swirls and blotches of darkness: a bat, a spaceship, a face that looks like my mother’s.
My mother.
“What do you see?” he asks, and I shake my head.
I tell him that I see a bat. The biggest thing, the most obvious thing. He nods. We’re done. But I can tell—looking at Gibson, stressed and panicked now—that something has changed. I can feel it.
I have to be quick, I know. I have a few minutes between getting into my room at night and lights out, I have to find some way to stay awake. I have to force myself.
I keep my eyes open for as long as possible. I don’t lie down. I stand against the wall and then I slump. I know that I’m slumping, but I can’t help it.
Then my eyes are shut, and I think—before I sleep—how I have failed.
I see Polly while I’m eating breakfast. No sign of Jonah, and I don’t know how to get ahold of him. I want to talk to him. His note, scrunched up in my pocket; I can feel it like it’s hot, burning a hole to my skin. I’m at a table with people who I know but who I don’t need to remember. One of them is enormous, bigger than Tom, bigger than pretty much anybody else I’ve ever seen. He’s so large that the spoon for his cereal looks comically small in his hand, and he has three bowls of the stuff to sustain him. I haven’t seen him before. But I feel like I have. I draw away from him, scared a little. It’s not just his size, it’s what it represents.