Bands: A Short Story

by Jakobi Mackworth

  “Are you sure you want to see him like this?” the doctor asked. “He’s quite delusional.”

  The wire band on Angie’s right wrist buzzed out a quick staccato pattern- the doctor was feeling concerned. She frowned, her Band still vibrating. It was the buzz of fear. She was feeling fear.

  “I can’t just leave him in this place, he's my fiancé.” The Band snapped against her wrist with a sudden angry buzz, stinging the soft skin as if it had been slapped. The doctor did not approve.

  Angie pressed her lips together to stop her chin from quivering. She hung her head. For five straight days her Band had buzzed out the same distinct pattern. Shame. The skin of her wrist under the bracelet had grown raw from so much emotion. Still it did not stop. Like a slow pulsating heart it pumped out its message. Shame. Shame. Shame.

  Oh Arden. Disapproval buzzed. Why did she have to fall in love with him? He was so impulsive. This whole fiasco was the perfect example of what their life was going to be like if he did not start using better judgment. She had to put a stop to this type of behavior now, before it happened again.

  In three short weeks they were going to be married. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise; maybe the events of the last week would make him realize that his actions affected both of them now.

  Her band buzzed hopefulness. Yes, she felt hopeful. He would listen to her. He would change his mind once he understood how upset she was. She looked down at the small diamond ring on her finger. It gleamed in the sunlight as she wiggled it, making it sparkle. It still felt so strange. Yes, he would listen to his wife. She smiled and mouthed the words to herself. His wife.

  The doctor who had met her at the gate gestured for her to follow. She fell in step behind him trying to match his hurried pace. Her band buzzed lightly as she walked, practically singing hopefulness.

  They walked along through the grounds of the asylum. The grass was brown and dry. Old brick buildings stood scattered about. They passed an oak tree that looked sick from disease, its branches sagging in the afternoon heat.

  A lone sprinkler meant for the tree had fallen over a few feet away. It uselessly watered the cracked concrete path instead, making a large puddle in their path. She stepped gingerly over the puddle, lifting her dress just a little, trying to keep it clean. She wanted to look good when Arden saw her.

  The doctor stiffened suddenly and spoke without looking towards her. “Stay close behind me. Put your Band out where it can see them.”

  She started to ask why, but stopped herself. She knew better. Every citizen knew better. She kept her face forward while her eyes darted side to side the way she had been taught since she was a child. She quickened her pace, right arm outstretched, Band clearly visible. At first all she saw was the chipped and fading twenty-foot high concrete wall extending away in both directions.

  Then she saw it. Its head must have moved just enough to catch the sun. It crouched atop the wall watching them walk. It was hard to tell without looking directly at it but from what Angie could see it looked about the size of a large dog. The machine’s body was cylindrical and smooth, the steel polished to a bright black sheen.

  Out of the body jetted eight legs, four to a side, just like an arachnoid. It stood motionless except for its front left leg. When it caught Angie’s gaze the Spider dragged its jagged steel claw slowly back and forth across the concrete wall just loud enough for them to hear. It wanted them to know it was watching.

  Angie shivered as a chill ran down her back. She raised her wrist her to make sure it could see the Band. Danger buzzed on her wrist. The doctor spoke quietly, staring at the ground.

  “We think they are very displeased with your fiancé.”

  A hole opened in the front of the Spider’s face. Thousands of tiny black machine’s identical to the matriarch poured out if it. The little Spiders scattered over it’s eyes, swarmed into its mouth, its ears, everywhere. It dawned on Angie this was one of the Breeders, the rulers of the hive. She had never been this close to one before. What was what it doing here, at a human hospital of all places?

  Just as quickly as they appeared, the tiny machines were swallowed back into the hole from which they’d crawled in the Matriarch’s face. It sealed back over. She turned her remaining eyes towards Angie and the doctor. It stared directly at them and crouched, its eight sharp toes pointed down like a ballerina, unmoving. Angie looked away. Horror buzzed on her wrist.

  “They have been all over the grounds since your fiancé arrived. No one knows why they are so concerned with him.”

  The doctor looked over at Angie, awaiting her reply. They walked in silence until finally Angie said, "I, I don’t know what to say.”

  The doctor sighed. “Your fiancé is endangering more than just himself with this foolishness.”

  “He’ll listen to me." She swallowed hard.

  The doctor glared. “He’d better.”

  Her band buzzed with his disapproval. She blushed. Shame buzzed. Shame for coming to such a dark place for love.

  Angie and the doctor crossed the grounds together following the broken concrete path. They passed what must have been an orchard a long time ago. Half the trees had fallen and the remaining few were dying, choked by the weeds sprouting below.

  They came to an open courtyard. Empty benches surrounded an empty fountain. Leaves gathered in its dry basin. An elderly patient with a fresh scar circumferentially around his skull raked a patch of dirt. His face was blank, his Band quiet. Two Spiders stood back by the fountain watching him.

  As they passed the patient stopped raking and glanced up. Instantly the Spiders dropped into a threatening crouch, as if ready to pounce. A strange clicking emanated from the machinery deep inside the larger one, rising in pitch and frequency. The patient shrunk back as if bracing to be stuck.

  “Rake, damn you!” The doctor cried. “Hurry up before you get us all killed.”

  At the words of the doctor the patient began furiously raking the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust. Angie coughed, trying to avoid looking at the machines. Her nostrils burned and her eyes watered. The smell of ammonia mixed with a gasoline like odor filled the air. It dawned on her she was smelling the Spiders. She had heard of the odor before, but never been close enough to smell one for herself. It was awful. This day could not end soon enough.

  The Spiders let them pass. The path ended at a dilapidated building labeled Rehabilitation. The doctor stopped in front of door and spoke to Angie.

  “I hope you can talk some sense into the young man. Such a waste it would be if he had to stay here for treatment.” The doctor glanced back towards the Spiders in the yard, “not to mention his presence here is making a lot of our staff very uncomfortable.”

  Danger pulsed quietly on her wrist. Yes, it was danger she and Arden were now in.

  “Can he talk?” she asked quietly.

  “Well of course he can talk. That’s not the problem. We just have no idea on what he is feeling when he does. It’s a dangerous and unprecedented situation.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “When he cut off the Band he severed himself off from the rest of humanity. If that weren’t bad enough that simple act broke about a thousand treaties as well.” The doctor scowled at Angie as if she somehow were to blame. “God only knows what could have been going through his head.”

  “It wasn’t his fault, his Band broke,” Angie said half-heartedly. She felt the doctor buzz with disdain for her. She buzzed embarrassment.

  “Yes, I’m familiar with his story. All he had to do to prevent this whole mess was put on another Band.”

  The doctor paused, rubbed his face, took a deep breath, and placed his hand on Angie’s shoulder. “Look, you seem like a nice young lady, maybe you should rec
onsider before you tie yourself to someone… like him.”

  Angie hung her head. Hopelessness buzzed on her wrist before changing again back to shame. The Band slowly began a new pulse. Anger. She was growing angry with Arden for dragging her into this. This was the week they were supposed to be picking out China for their wedding, not running around an insane asylum for God’s sake. She felt the anger begin to buzz with greater intensity.

  The doctor held his own Band clad wrist up to a scanner in front of them. It chimed and a steel door swung open.

  “He’s upstairs in isolation. We couldn’t let him near the other patients as there is no way to know what he might to do.”

  They entered what looked like a big rec room. There were screens everywhere. The doctor felt her fearful buzz.

  “Don’t worry, this is a humans only building.”

  Angie relaxed.

  He held out his arms like a tour guide, “Down here is where patients who are well behaved are allowed to socialize. We try to gradually bring them back into larger groups. Unfortunately your fiancé has not made it out of the isolation room yet.”

  Angie frowned. Poor Arden, locked away. At least the Spiders were outside. They passed a wall covered in murals. Every single one had a picture of Spiders and humans living together side by side. There was one of them harvesting wheat, another with a tall Spider and a short doctor tending to a sick human patient, even a photo of a Spider carefully holding a human baby in its claws as a Band was placed on the infant. The child’s parents stood on each side holding up their Bands for the camera.

  Next to each photo was the same slogan:

  “THE BANDS DON’T LIE.”

  Angie knew that saying. It was everywhere these days. On t-shirts, on billboards, even last week at church she had noticed the sign prominently displayed behind the alter. Now they were putting it in hospitals.

  It was a good reminder she thought. The Bands bring us closer, closer to each other. For all the horror the Spiders had brought into the world at least they had also brought the Bands.

  Angie noticed a patient sitting on one of the couches watching a documentary. A familiar voice rang out from the TV. She recognized it immediately. It was a documentary she had watched in school, a documentary everyone had watched in school.

  Pictures of the invasion played across the screen. Cities burned down. Bodies piled up. The camera cut to the Spiders pouring out of a hole in the ground, swarming in all directions as a bomb harmlessly ignited in one of their hives.

  Angie hated this film. It had given her nightmares as a child. Every year in school they were forced to watch it. Every year it scared her.

  The images continued. A police dog staggered out of a cloud of smoke and fell, half its face hanging off like a slab of burnt meat. Immediately behind it a Spider leapt out of the cloud onto the dog tearing it apart with its claws. Men surrounded the Spider, firing guns at its black body, the bullets sparking off harmlessly. It leapt at one of the men, the camera cutting away a moment before he was struck.

  A deep baritone voice rang out from the TV: “For seventy six years the war continued. We did not understand them. They did not understand us. There was no peace.”

  More images filled the screen. Angie turned away closing her eyes. She knew this story. Every child knew this story.

  The Bands. The Bands had ended the war. The Spiders did not understand human emotion. Humans did not, still did not, understand what the Spiders were or what they wanted. But at least the Bands brought peace.

  It was the Spiders who had offered the Bands as a gesture of peace. They said it was to help them understand human emotion, to help them understand how to end the war.

  At first humans thought it was a trick. But the Bands worked. The little wires sensed emotion better even than people could sense their own emotion. All of sudden people found they could know the exact moment when they started being more happy than sad, or even the very second they were more in love than not. Best of all they shared your emotion with whomever you spoke with. Everyone wanted one. And the Spiders made sure everyone got one.

  The devices felt magical, marvelous. Gone were the confusing days of being unsure what you truly felt about a loved one, a coworker, or even a cheese sandwich. All you had to do was let your Band tell you what you were feeling. After all, as the saying went, the Bands don’t lie.

  A truce was signed with the Spiders. The war ended. Parts of the world became Spider only where as other parts became human only. For a decade there was peace. Recently the Spiders had begun showing up unannounced in human areas. Coalitions were formed to try to address the Spider encroachments but ever single time any group started to get momentum it fell apart. It seemed humans could not agree on anything anymore.

  “Maybe you will have better luck than we have convincing him to put it back on.” The doctor held out a bright red band. Angie took it from him and nodded. She could do this.

  The doctor unlocked the heavy door and held it open for her. Her wrist began to buzz like a trapped wasp under her sleeve. She realized she must feel terrified. She took a deep breath. The pattern on her wrist slightly changed.

  “I’m feeling brave too.” She whispered to herself. With that she stepped through the door into the room.

  Part II

  “Angie!” Arden jumped up as she walked into the room. He had been sitting on his bed reading a tablet. He flashed all his teeth at her, and his eyes squinted, a twinkle in them. He stood up tossing the tablet onto the couch. He took a step towards her but she stepped back and held up her hand.

  “Just stop Arden,” she said as sternly as possible. Her wrist hummed with anger. “Why are you doing this? Why...” She stopped midsentence and stared in horror at his naked wrist. So it was true. He still had not put it back on. Somehow part of her had hoped there had been a mistake. Angie could feel her Band buzzing with confusion as it searched for whom she was talking to.

  He shrugged, “Those hours I went without the Band were unlike anything I have ever experienced. I can’t even begin to describe to you what its like.” He rubbed his bare wrist, looking down at it as he spoke. “You should try it hon, once I get out of here I can cut yours off if you want.”

  Angie recoiled, her wrist buzzing in horror. The very idea to intentionally cut yourself off from everyone was incomprehensible. She cursed silently. That stupid broken Band. Why couldn’t it have happened to her? She would have put an another Band on right away, nothing other than a few minutes of panic might have occurred. But now, now everything was falling apart.

  It wasn’t just that his Band had broken. It had broken and the backup alarm notifying its failure had not signaled. For five straight hours Arden had walked around without a functioning Band. Unfortunately that was all it took to put the fool idea in his head to remove the Band completely.

  When Arden showed up at home without his Band on all hell broke loose. She begged him to put another on but he refused. Within minutes Spiders showed up everywhere in what was supposed to be a human only neighborhood. People hid in their homes. A policeman nearly came to blows with a Spider who tried to push through the police line to force a Band back on Arden. An ambulance arrived. The crew chief convinced everyone to calm down, Arden was obviously having a mental breakdown and needed help.

  Arden and the crew chief argued. The crowd grew restless. Finally the police lost their patience and hog-tied him, throwing him none too gently into the back of the ambulance. The standoff ended as Arden was whisked away. That night the windows in Angie’s apartment were smashed. She moved back in with her mother.

  That was a little over a week ago. Arden had been in the hospital now for eight days. Finally, Angie had received a desperate call from one of the doctors to come talk with Arden. In no small terms he explained the seriousness of the situation. This was his last chance.

  “Please Arden, come home. I’m…” her Band buzzed a complex pattern onto her wrist that took her a moment to recognize. “I’m sad witho
ut you, and I’m scared about what you are doing. I don’t know who you are without your Band.”

  Arden laughed. “You do know who I am. You know better than anyone.” He looked right at her.

  Angie’s heart fluttered. Her wrist stayed silent, unable to read Arden. Was he serious? Was he joking? Was he being sarcastic? She felt like she was going to be sick. She knew Arden was speaking, but what did he mean, what did he feel? Without the Band there was no way to know.

  Arden laughed again. “You’re not going to believe this but I can tell what people are feeling by looking at their faces and how they move their bodies. At first I thought I was imagining it. Then I realized there was something to it. Like right now, you are scared.”

  Angie gasped and jumped back towards the door. Her left wrist buzzed danger and panic. “Stop it Arden! Stop it! I don’t know how you did that but it’s frightening me!”

  Arden softened his tone. “The stories they talk about in school- the ones about how people communicated before the Bands? They’re true. I can’t explain it but I, I feel certain emotions in my chest,” he put his hand over his heart. “It’s just like in the stories, except we can still do it. We don’t need the Bands.”