by Kyle Andrews
But she was on the verge of death, depending on how far the word 'verge' could be extended. It might not happen that day or the next, but the process of Amanda's death had begun. There was no more question about how it would happen, or whether Amanda would ever see Libby's children—if Libby ever had children. There was no chance to imagine her mother falling in love again, or learning some new skill or talent that she'd been putting off until now. Amanda's life was now in the past, and what remained of it would be spent in that hospital room, looking back.
Growing up, Libby hadn't spent a lot of time wondering what life would be like without her mother. She always assumed that she would eventually be assigned to whatever job the authorities chose for her, and she would get her own place to live. She would probably never see her mother or talk to her. She didn't think that they had the sort of relationship that would hold up over the years, so Libby didn't think about what it would be like to sit beside her dying mother. She'd always assumed that there were people for that sort of thing.
The TV went to commercial and a gruff, intimidating voice said, “Bully Jackson was your average high school all-star. The good looking athlete that all the girls wanted. But beneath that charming exterior, a monster dwelt...”
“Hate's in our blood!” cried a maniacal man.
Libby turned toward the screen, just in time to see an actor in a varsity jacket recreate the death of her cousin... or, a character based on her cousin.
“A story, inspired by actual events...” the gruff voice-over continued. “'City in Chaos.' A very special episode. Tonight.”
The logo for the crime series, HAND and Gavel appeared on the screen. It was a logo that Libby had seen a hundred times in the past, though she rarely watched the series. They regularly took real-life events and wrote them into the show. She never thought much of it. She just figured that they were trying to capitalize on whatever topic people were talking about at the time.
But now she saw that commercial, and she realized that it was so much more than she ever imagined. They weren't copying stories from the headlines and putting them in the show. They were taking the distorted reality of what had been reported, and twisting it even more. Fictionalizing fiction, taking away any need for thought or logic, and boiling those stories down to pure emotional reaction, in order to push the official lie that was put out by the authorities.
That said, Libby had to give them credit for producing an episode about Uly and having it ready to air only a month after he died. Though naming him 'Bully Jackson' didn't give her the impression that the writing was of the highest quality.
After that commercial, a news anchor appeared on the screen, looking into the camera with a serious expression and saying, “The city is on edge today, as extremist vandals plaster the city's sidewalks with hate speech. We'll have the full story coming up at the top of the hour.”
Libby stared at the TV, wishing that the anchor would elaborate. What was going on? What hate speech was being plastered on the sidewalks? What did that even mean?
She picked up the remote control and tried to flip to the next channel, but nothing happened. She pressed harder, and still nothing happened. Then she pressed hard and rocked her thumb back and forth, and for some reason that caused the remote to work once again.
The next channel had a standard political infomercial, telling the audience how great the latest laws and mandates were. Libby hadn't even bothered to watching those when she was on the supplements, and she wasn't about to start sitting through them now.
She flipped to the next channel, which was a game show. The next was entertainment news. Not exactly what she was looking for. She flipped past two talk shows and an all-weather channel before finally coming across a news report.
They were reporting a story about a HAND officer who heroically saved a young child from being hit by a bus. Then there was a story about the racial tensions that followed the attempted theft of medication from a minority neighborhood hospital; which never happened. Then finally, they segued into the story about the vandalism.
There was a reporter standing outside, visible from the waist up as she walked down the sidewalk, holding a microphone and trying to keep her long blond hair from blowing in her face.
“Extremist vandals have plastered the city's sidewalks with hate speech,” the reporter said, nearly repeating the same exact words that Libby had just heard on a completely different channel. “The streets have been stained with red. Passersby have been mortified by what they've seen. Children walk around these words of hate, scared to even touch them with the bottoms of their shoes.
“It began this morning, as citizens of the city made their way from their homes, to work and school. It started like any other day, until those citizens looked down.”
A heavy woman, wearing a thick scarf and a knit hat appeared on the screen, representing the common citizens of the city as she said, “I saw the words. And I read them. And I was like...”
She made an expression with her eyes which said absolutely nothing to Libby. Then there was a quick glimpse of the sidewalk, with the spray painted words blurred out by the channel. After that, the reporter was on screen once again.
“City officials are blaming these words—which we can't even show on the air—on the Constitutional extremist group, Hate. Though nobody witnessed these acts of terrorism directly, officials have promised to track down those responsible and punish them to the fullest extent of the law.”
They cut back to the newsroom, where an anchor was sitting behind the desk. He was a middle-aged man with graying hair, who looked as though he was about to fall asleep.
The anchor pretended to be very interested in this story as he asked, “Have officials told you how they plan to catch these terrorists?”
The reporter on the sidewalk answered, “It's interesting that you should ask. I brought the subject up with the officials that I spoke to...”
The woman paused, as though she wanted a special reward for doing her job. When one didn't come, she continued, “They told me that they believe they might be able to gain information from another familiar name. Collin Powers is still being held by HAND officials, and he's been cooperating with authorities. They believe that he will be able to help them track down the base of operations for Hate in the city.”
When Libby heard Collin's name, a chill ran up her spine. He was alive, according to the authorities. They had lied about Libby in the past, so she knew that they could have been lying again, but just the idea that Powers might be alive caused her insides to twist. If he wasn't dead, what were they doing to him?
She didn't know Powers. For all she knew, he could have been a horrible human being, but the feeling that ran through her when they mentioned his name was the same sort of panic that she'd felt when Simon hadn't returned home. She felt connected to him.
“That's exciting,” the anchor said. “Could this mean an end to Hate, once and for all?”
“I sure hope so,” the reporter on the street smiled.
“Thank you for that information,” the anchor said to the reporter, before addressing the audience and saying, “That was Aera Humptey reporting.
It was obvious that Libby wasn't going to get any information about Collin Powers, or the words on the sidewalk, by watching the news. They would tell her only what they wanted her to know about the situation, which was as little as possible.
She turned off the TV and stood. She didn't want to leave Amanda alone. If her mother did wake up, she didn't want her to wake up in a strange place, with no familiar faces around her. Libby didn't even know why, but it seemed important that Amanda didn't wake up with nobody around.
Pacing like a lion in a cage, Libby started to wonder what was going on in the world. She wanted to see it with her own eyes, but she couldn't. Even if Amanda hadn't been brought in, Libby would be locked away in the Garden. She was too important to risk having her killed by some random thug on the street, or to be captured by HAND, like Collin Power
s.
He was alive. Maybe. What did that change? It had to change something, she just didn't know what.
When that nurse that she had spoken to earlier walked into Amanda's room, Libby nearly jumped. The nurse wrote her name, Lacy, on the marker board across from Amanda's bed before turning to Libby.
“How's she doing?” Lacy asked.
“She hasn't woken up yet.”
“Her body's been through a lot. She's probably just tired.”
Libby nodded, silently wondering if it would be in poor taste to change the topic of conversation, from the dying woman in the room, to the latest breaking news from the outside world.
Lacy was checking Amanda over, and making sure that everything was going smoothly with her IV, while Libby watched quietly. Then, once Lacy had written all that she needed to write in Amanda's chart, Libby spoke up.
“Have you been outside today?” she asked.
Lacy shook her head and said, “I don't get out much.”
“Something's happening. The news was talking about hate speech all over the sidewalks.”
Lacy smiled and said, “With 'paint the color of blood.' Oddly fitting, don't you think?”
“So they're quoting the documents?”
“Yeah. Judging by the look on Aaron's face when he saw the reports, I don't think it was an official Freedom operation. But whoever did it is sure making a splash.”
Libby went to the bed and sat down, trying to figure out why Aaron would be so upset about spreading the documents around town. She finally decided that it was because up until that point, the authorities couldn't know for sure that Freedom had access to those documents. They could work quietly to keep them from getting released. Now they knew. Everyone knew.
The authorities would be angry. They now had something unpredictable unfolding in their city. They couldn't control the spread of those words. They couldn't control the way people talked amongst themselves. Even if they had their news outlets repeating the official story over and over again, everyone who had seen those words on the sidewalk would know what was being blurred out, and they would tell anyone who hadn't been there to see it for themselves. It would be chaos.
Libby was intrigued. She wanted to see how this would play out. She wanted to see HAND and their bosses scrambling to quash a story that they couldn't possibly quash. The more they tried to hide those words, the more people would whisper. In fact, they probably would have been wiser to just show the words on the screen and remove the mystery from them.
They were making mistakes. They were panicking. At least, in Libby's head. She couldn't know what was really going on out there, but she was curious to see how it unfolded.
33
Collin's body was numb. From the neck down, he couldn't feel a thing. Unable to move his head, he couldn't even see the rest of his body, and after a few hours, he began to wonder if it was even there anymore.
Constantly on the verge of sleep, but never allowed to doze off, Collin stared into the lights above him, and forms began to take shape. Swirls of color turned into hills and oceans, for a fraction of a second, here and there, before they faded back into blobs. They were the creation of his own imagination, but he'd take whatever he could get.
Even though nothing about his situation changed, and he could hear nothing from beyond that room, Collin began to suspect that something was happening. Nobody had come over the speakers to ask him pointless questions. Nobody had upped his pain in hours. Nobody had come to tend to his wounds or start an IV drip. The only person in the room with him was Liz, and she wasn't real.
“Do you remember when we first met?” he asked her, for what must have been the tenth time since he started imagining her there with him. He asked in a voice too quiet for anyone else to hear.
The imaginary Liz stayed behind him, where he could not see her. She sat on the floor, watching him struggle to survive as he grew weaker and weaker. She had pain in her eyes, but she wasn't crying. Her lips were red and glossy, like an old fashioned movie star, but there was no glamor to her. No matter how hard he tried to make her appear vibrant and healthy in his mind, she always reverted to wearing dull clothes, and her hair was always kept back with a rubber band or a bandana. Because of his inability to imagine his ex girlfriend as anything other than what she really was, the red lipstick began to look more and more like blood as the hours passed.
“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked again, forgetting whether or not he'd said it out loud the first time. It didn't really matter of course, since Liz was in his mind, but he wanted to talk. He wanted to remember that he was a person once.
The imaginary Liz that he could not see did not respond. He wished she would, even if it wouldn't be a good sign for his mental condition.
“You took the last bowl of soup,” he smiled. “I took the last packet of crackers, just to spite you. I don't think you ever knew that before. I felt so proud of myself for taking a stand against the woman who stole my lunch by cutting in line.”
Collin licked his lips with his dry tongue and closed his eyes. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog, and told the imaginary Liz, “No. That wasn't the first time we met. We didn't meet then. That was the first time I saw you. The first time we actually met was...”
He thought about the first time they met. It was hard for him to remember the details. Normally, he'd be able to close his eyes and picture everything about their first conversation, but it was foggy now. He just wanted to sleep.
“The first time we met,” he said, waking himself up because he didn't want his observers to do it for him. “We were dancing. You were dancing. I was trying to dance. And we saw each other across the crowded floor. We both knew.”
The imaginary Liz couldn't help but smile. Collin was lying to her because he wanted to lie to the people who were watching them—watching him. She wasn't real. He knew that.
If Collin allowed himself to speak the truth about any of his encounters with Liz, or anyone else related to Freedom, he would risk revealing too much information. He would risk the lives of people that he cared about. So when he spoke out loud, he didn't even say her name. Her name was for him alone.
“What was that song that they were playing? It was an old country song, I think. A drunk man and his abusive wife. Or an abusive man and his cheating wife. Or... You know the one.”
Overhead, the blobs of color in the bright lights turned into a snowy valley, full of blues and grays. Snow covered trees. Ice covered pond. The sky looked like... a bright light bulb shining directly in his eyes. The image was gone. He wished that it would have lasted a little while longer. He'd never seen a valley before.
“There was something so beautiful about the way you were dancing. The way you moved your hips. The way you bit your lip. The way you ran your fingers through your hair.”
Imaginary Liz cringed. He was making her sound far more skanky than she was. As if the stupid bloody lipstick wasn't bad enough.
“I wanted to be the one moving your hips. Biting your lips. Running my fingers through your hair.”
Collin couldn't help but laugh at the thought of this scene playing out in his head. He might have been a great book runner in his day, but he was a horrible writer. Now, he was putting on a show for the people that he assumed were watching him. If they were still watching him. If something wasn't happening in the real world.
The lights went out. For the first time in a month, Collin was cast into darkness, and the room around him became a brilliant display of color. It was like sailing through the cosmos, past bright stars and through nebulae.
“Whoa,” Collin said under his breath as he watched the show. It was actually kinda cool.
He felt a tingling sensation in the big toe of his left foot. This grew into a pinprick sensation, which grew into a stabbing pain.
Collin closed his eyes. The colors continued to swirl, just the same as they had before, but now across the inside of his eyelids. He gritted his teeth, trying his be
st not to groan or scream as the pain continued to grow in that one toe, which was all he could feel. He didn't want his observers to get whatever satisfaction they were looking for.
He heard a door open and close, and footsteps walking toward him. Someone was standing behind him. Someone real. Someone who didn't just exist in his head.
Imaginary Liz scrambled to the other side of the room. Maybe if the lights were on, he would be able to see her now. She quickly dropped back to the floor and covered her head with her hands. She didn't want to watch whatever was going to happen.
The fact that imaginary Liz could see in the dark impressed Collin.
“Hello,” someone said into Collin's left ear. It was a male. He could feel the man's breath on his ear. “How are you today?”
Collin didn't answer. The pain in his toe continued to grow until it felt as though that toe were going to explode off of his body. It was something that Collin might have preferred at that point, if it would mean an end to that pain.
“Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” the man asked him. He then said, “Excuse my manners,” and the pain in Collin's toe began to fade until it was back to that stabbing feeling. It hurt, but no longer felt like it was going to explode.
“How are you today?” the man asked Collin.
Still, Collin didn't answer.
The pain began to grow again. Little by little. Bit by bit. It was getting back to that point where he wished the toe would just disappear.
Then the pain faded back to the stabbing feeling and the man asked, “How are you today?”
Collin swallowed hard, though there was no moisture in his mouth. He told the man, “I'm good. How 'bout yourself?”
The words weren't as crisp as he would have liked. His tongue felt huge and he was tripping over it as he spoke.
“I'm doing well. Thank you for asking,” the man replied.
“Think nothing of it, old chap.”
“There is a virus spreading across the city.”
“Did you have tuna fish for lunch?”