Unbound

by J. B. Simmons

  Excitement filled Naomi’s voice as she told me more about her friend Jade, the wedding, and the Vatican. We ate dessert while she explained about the Pope who took his position a couple decades ago. He led the tiny nation to remain one of the few holdouts from the UN’s global telecom system. She told me no one in the Vatican even had precepts. Everything she said was interesting. Everything about her was interesting.

  After dinner, we found an isolated sitting room with a soft leather couch and a crackling fire. I sat close to her, our knees touching. At some point I put my hand on hers. I was losing all track of time. The fire was burning low before my final thread of caution broke. I could not let this night drift into a tepid ending.

  “I wouldn’t think a girl like you,” I said, “would invite a guy like me to a wedding in a foreign country.”

  “You’re not like other guys,” she said. The firelight made her face glow. “And haven’t we spent enough time together for you to know I’m not easy to predict?”

  “Hard to predict, yes.” Her magnetic pull compressed the space between our eyes. “You’re not like anyone else I’ve met.”

  “I would say the same of you.” She tilted her head back slightly, drawing me forward.

  My heart was racing as I leaned closer. Her soft lips were inches from mine.

  I went for the kiss.

  But she moved back.

  Then she pressed her lips to my forehead. My heart sank to my feet. My unheard soundtrack jarred to a stop. Her hand was on my flushed cheek.

  “Thank you for tonight,” she said, smiling warmly. “The best things wait until they’re unexpected. Let’s see what Rome brings.” Her kiss was a feather’s touch on my cheek before she stood. “Goodnight, Elijah.”

  I stood. “Goodnight, Naomi.” My voice was surprisingly steady, given I felt like I’d just swallowed a gallon of awkwardness.

  She turned to go. Her figure was like a thin candle flame as she walked away.

  I fell back onto the couch and stared at the fire. I had been so caught up in her that I’d forgotten to ask that we sync our precepts, as if she would have accepted. It hardly seemed to matter. My head did not stop spinning until it found a deep, dreamless sleep.

  THE NEXT MORNING, a dense fog laid heavy over the countryside. Naomi and I had breakfast together and left the Inn. We talked more of the wedding in April while we drove back to the city. She acted as if we were closer than ever. She even reached for my hand once the auto-drive picked up. Maybe she felt bad about the dodged kiss. It just made me feel sick to my stomach.

  As we drew closer to Washington, a sense of dread began to rise inside me. I wondered if it was because of some dream I’d had but could not remember, or the wedding trip to Rome, or maybe just the fog. When you can’t see what’s a hundred feet ahead, everything in the future starts to feel like a threat.

  We arrived at the ISA building at 11:30. I hesitated before getting out of the car.

  Naomi looked at me with curiosity. “You ready?”

  “Mostly,” I said. “But I don’t want to go back in there as if nothing has changed.” I met her eyes. “What are we going to be after this week is over?”

  She smiled. “I don’t know, Elijah, but it’s clear there’s something between us.”

  “You didn’t act like it last night,” I said.

  “But I did, for me,” she said. “It’s been an intense week. I don’t want to rush into anything.”

  “You mean, like inviting me to a wedding in Rome?”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “I could invite any friend to a wedding.”

  Any friend—that stung. “So I’m just a friend who has some dreams you want to test? Is that it?”

  “No,” she sounded hurt, confused. “I like you…more than I should. I really do, but you have to admit, we have some major differences.”

  “So why should I come to the wedding?”

  “Because maybe it will help us get past the differences.”

  “You really believe that?”

  She nodded, but I needed more.

  “I’ll prove my interest by going,” I said, “but you have to prove yours, too.”

  “Okay,” she said, “how?”

  “Sync with me.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  No surprise there. “Why not?”

  “It’s not you,” she said, pressing her lips together uncertainly. “But isn’t that a little fast? And what about ISA-7, don’t you think they would notice?”

  “Why would they care? It would just make it easier for them to make us partners. We have to leave DC and each other today, you know. Don’t you think we’ll feel isolated once we go back to regular life? We’ll have access to all this information and technology, but we won’t be able to share it, except with each other.”

  “Who else would you want to share it with?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Other friends?”

  “You mean your friends from school? You never talk much about them.”

  “I guess you never asked,” I said, but the truth was I didn’t have close friends. I had V, which was usually good enough…until Naomi came along. “Look,” I said, “I don’t want to lose the something we’ve started. Let’s keep a piece of each other, okay?”

  She thought for several moments, with no emotion on her face. I felt sure she would say no. But she surprised me. “Okay,” she said, “we can sync if you promise no judging. We won’t have time to view or talk about our information before we go in for the test results.”

  “Understood,” I said. “No judging.”

  I held out my wrist.

  She pressed her wrist to mine.

  “Sync,” I said.

  “Sync,” she echoed.

  Our precepts began to speak in unison: “Five, four, three, two, one. Sync complete.”

  Then it was done. I now carried all her biometrics in my precept, in my mind. I summoned my map screen through V. Naomi was a blinking green dot beside me. I shifted to a status screen. Her body temperature was 99.2 degrees. She’d eaten 743 calories this day. Her web of networks was vast. I noticed a few in Italy, so I check them. They were locked. I checked the ones in DC. Locked. There were thousands across the world, but I had a feeling all their identities were hidden from me, password-protected.

  Her pulse was rising. And she knew mine was, too. I suddenly felt naked with her knowing so much about me, all at once.

  I shut off the screen. Naomi’s cheeks were flushed. There was a tinge of doubt, almost fear, in her eyes.

  “No judging,” I assured her.

  She nodded. “We have to go now. Let’s get water on the way. We both need hydration.”

  Of course we did. Maybe I would have to start eating better. “How do you know so many people?” I asked.

  “Some information stays hidden for a reason.” She opened her car door. “We can’t show all our secrets at once,” she said, some of her confidence returning.

  We both stepped out. The world was the same, except now Naomi and I were linked together in it.

  NAOMI AND I hurried to the ISA-7 room. Our three classmates were already there, waiting for the results of the exam. The looks on their faces were telling as they saw Naomi and me entering together. Patrick looked like a sad puppy. Charles grinned like a prankster. And Aisha looked concerned and brooding. I had not had a chance to ask Charles about Aisha’s message.

  “We missed you at the movie last night,” Charles said.

  “What did you see?” Naomi asked.

  “Lost in China,” Charles answered. “It’s a story of boy meets girl, except this time the boy is a Chinese prison guard and the girl is an American who was taken during the attack in ’53. It was pretty good, but no Oscar.”

  “Charles left out one part,” Aisha chimed in. “His mom was in it! She played the mom of the Chinese boy. Can you believe he hadn’t told us she was an actress?”
/>   Charles shrugged. “That’s what precepts are for.”

  “Where do you think he got his good looks?” I asked.

  “I worked hard for it,” Charles said, running a hand through his hair like a model and making the group laugh. He knew how to lighten a mood, but mine was still dark.

  “How was your trip to the country?” Patrick asked Naomi, as if the rest of us were not standing there.

  “It was very nice,” Naomi said with a straight face. Only I knew her pulse ticked up at Patrick’s question. It made me smile. “Sometimes it’s good to get away before a big day like today,” she added. “Any news about the results?”

  “We saw Wade in here a few minutes ago.” Charles glanced over his shoulder into the room, and then continued in a mockingly low voice. He knew they’d hear what he said no matter how quietly he whispered. “Wade says four of us passed.”

  “Four?” Naomi’s eyebrows lifted like rainbow arcs.

  Four, the Captain’s voice came into my mind through the ISA-7 network. From the looks on the others’ faces, they had heard it, too. Take your seats.

  We obeyed the order and sat in our chairs. We were lined up before a huge screen. A panel in the floor slid away, and the Captain rose up to face us.

  “Four of you passed,” he said, as the floor sealed shut and the screen came on. “That’s pretty good. I figured, with your group, two or three might make it on the first try.”

  He turned his back to us and gestured to the screen. An image of the blue-and-white UN flag appeared, rippling as if in a gentle wind. I had never seen it so big. It covered the whole wall of glass and was five times the height of the Captain. The man stood motionless, a small silhouette staring at the image before us.

  “This is why you came here. To protect our world.” He turned to face us, his voice almost emotional. “Once you step through the door of ISA-7, there is no turning back. We are the invisible front line. If we stop a threat, no one knows about it. If a threat passes through us, tragedy will come. We give up freedom so that we can be freedom’s best hope.” He stepped closer to us. “You have heard all this. You know the stakes. But before you know if you passed, you must know that passing means you step across a threshold of no return. It’s time to affirm your commitment.”

  He moved to face Patrick, to the far left from me. He stood there silently, holding Patrick in a stare.

  “What words do I need to say?” Patrick asked.

  “The pledge,” the Captain answered. He sounded like a patient father. He’d never sounded like that before.

  Patrick put his hand over his heart. “I pledge allegiance to the flag—?”

  The Captain nodded. He almost looked proud.

  “To the flag,” Patrick continued, “of the United Nations, and to the security for which it stands, one world indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

  The Captain then stepped to Aisha. She said the pledge. Then Charles, Naomi, and I each did the same.

  “We will meet again,” the Captain saluted us. “It will be an honor to fight alongside you.” He went back to the spot on the floor that lowered him down and out of sight.

  Wade rushed in after that. The enormous flag was still behind him. “Okay y’all, it’s about time for the results. If you pass, you’ll receive a percentage score, and we use that to place you within our ranks. We’ll have sessions this afternoon about your first orders. And remember, even if you don’t pass today, you are still in ISA.” He glanced towards me. “You can test again for ISA-7.”

  My heart began to race. Was his glance supposed to mean that I had failed? I looked to Naomi by my left side. She smiled and nodded. For once it was little comfort.

  “Here you go,” Wade said. He pressed his wrist.

  A word dropped like an anvil on my head: Failed.

  IT TOOK ME a moment to remember where I was. This was the ISA-7 training room. My classmates were beside me. I realized none of them had heard the word in my mind. Their faces were focused, as if they were hearing a message.

  All I heard was the echo of the word: Failed.

  Wade came to me. He took my arm gently and helped me out of the chair. We walked beside each other. He opened the door and guided me out. I had not had a chance to say anything to the others. They had passed the exam. They were moving on.

  “I know this is hard,” Wade was saying. “Your time will come. It took me four tries to pass, but here I am now.”

  He was no comfort. I was not Wade. I had never failed, not like this.

  He kept talking as he led me out of the building. He was saying something about more chances, hard work, and sticking with it. I barely heard him.

  We left the building and he stayed beside me. I wondered how far he was going to escort me. Maybe I was a threat to ISA-7 now. Maybe I knew too much.

  Once we were within eyesight of my hotel, he stopped. “Listen to me, Elijah.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m not supposed to say much,” he said, “but you should know you were close. If it were just your abilities, you would already be in. You would be one of our best.” He put a finger to my temple. “But you have some disturbing images in your mind. You may want to see someone, you know, work those things out. We’ll test again this summer. We start the first Monday in July. Can I count on you being here?”

  I said nothing. Did he really expect me to commit now? Maybe the Captain was right. Maybe this was a sign—a sign that I was not the type to give up my freedom to serve. That was what my dad had said all along. Was it really worth all this to prove him wrong?

  “Naomi will be here again in July,” Wade said.

  “Why does that matter?” I fired back.

  He leaned away. I realized I had shouted louder than I’d intended. Losing my temper was no help, but that didn’t stop me. Reason succumbs to shock and failure.

  “I will be seeing her before then,” I said, grasping for anything that made me feel competent.

  Wade nodded with an amused grin. “We know more than you think, Elijah. Sometimes pairs team up for our missions. When two people sync closely, it can be more risky to keep them apart. We’ve never seen a sync as powerful as yours and Naomi’s. But now she can share ISA-7 information only with those on her team and her reporting authorities. You won’t be able to talk to her about her most important work, and we’ll know if she relays something she shouldn’t.”

  I knew a threat when I heard one. He was right, though. The secrecy of ISA-7 would be a wedge between us. Already V showed that Naomi was downloading a trove of protected data, as she sat in the same room where we’d gotten the results. The sync almost made it worse—I knew how much I couldn’t know about Naomi’s new information.

  “I’ll be here,” I told Wade. “First Monday in July.” That was half a year away. It didn’t hurt to say the words. I could always change my mind.

  “Excellent!” Wade raised his forearm toward me. “Lift your arm, please?”

  I did, and he tapped his arm against my wrist.

  “I just gave you the debrief package,” he said. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. At least one person fails every time. You still have what it takes for ISA-7. You have more than that.”

  I nodded, even though it didn’t help to hear that someone always fails, not when that someone was me.

  “See you on July fifth!” Wade said, as if it were the date of a kid’s birthday party.

  Then he walked away and left me alone.

  I went to my hotel room, shut off V and everything else, and laid facedown on the bed. I could not come up with any explanations. My thoughts were all meaningless and miserable. My classmates’ faces kept appearing. I imagined them laughing at me, except Naomi’s face was sad. That was even worse. Our sync was no comfort.

  V would have to stay disconnected for a while, even if that left the world more bland. I could not bear a fast and colorful mind in my state. Sometimes slow and monotone thinking was not so bad.

  I tr
ied to find solace in my return to school. It would be my last semester before graduation, and I could look forward to college in the fall. Maybe I’d fit in a ski trip in the Alps, or I’d join my dad in the tropics. Naomi and I could travel together in Italy. Good distractions, but this pain was here to stay. I had failed, and failed spectacularly.

  I eventually fell asleep. Then a dream came. It was a lucid dream, the kind you have only during a bleak midday nap.

  “DON’T GO,” SAID the man with solid black eyes.

  “He must go,” said the woman with Naomi’s eyes.

  “He cannot go. She will die.”

  “That is a lie.”

  “As true a lie as you’ve ever heard.”

  I was standing between the man and the woman as they talked. We were in an empty space. The only colors were black to one side and white to the other. I stood where the black and white met, like straddling the line down a yin-yang.

  “Death is temporary in this place.” The woman was standing on the side of me with only white in the distance. Her wispy robe was the same blank color. She had long blond curls and traces of wrinkles at the corners of her green Naomi-eyes.

  “This is about more than life or death. It is about him.” The man on the black side of me was not frightening, despite his eyes. He was magnificent, with shimmering white opal skin and long black hair falling over his high black collar. “Are you so brave,” he asked the woman, “that you’ll let him touch the world—touch her—so that he can enter fully?”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  The man glanced down at me, with a stunning, expressionless face. “Look who woke up,” he said. “It’s about time you let your eyes see and your ears listen.” His stare filled me with nervous excitement, as if great pleasure awaited. “He is the man you’ve seen, the man from your dreams.”

  “Don?”

  The woman laughed lightly. “Is that what he calls himself now? His name is Abaddon.” Her face became stern. “You cannot let him touch you. Only you can see what must be seen. You must protect her when he comes, and after he comes.”