BRINK: Book 1 - The Passing

by Rivers Black, Arienna

  Twelve years later, that same face swam so vividly before my eyes that I couldn't take it.

  “Stop,” I demanded, my breathing too fast, too loud. Maria raised her needle and looked up at me, concerned. “I can wait a while if it hurts too much,” she said.

  I shook my head, tears spilling down my face. “No, I...I'm sorry,” I choked out as I pushed myself from the chair and stumbled out the door onto the sidewalk.

  Johanna found me ten minutes later beneath a scraggly tree in a small mini-park near-by. I had almost stopped crying, but when she plopped down beside me I started up again.

  “I'm sorry,” I sobbed. “I know this meant a lot to you. I just couldn't do it.”

  “Hey, don't worry about it,” Johanna smiled. “Mission accomplished, as far as I'm concerned.”

  I scowled at her through my tears. “A tilted black candy-cane on my lower abdomen is your definition of 'mission accomplished'?”

  She grinned. “It may not be the tattoo you planned to get, but it's a tattoo. And it may not be the biggest act of rebellion in recorded history, but it's quite the step for Brynn Bowen.” Toying with the artfully frayed hem of her skirt, she added, lightly, “Also, you made me some money. Harlow bet me I wouldn't even get you in the chair.”

  I made a mental note to knee Harlow in the groin.

  “There, see?” said Johanna. “I knew pissing you off would help you stop crying.” She held out her arm, which was wrapped in white gauze. “We need to slap one of these on you before that puppy gets infected.”

  “I don't care if it gets infected,” I mumbled, petulant.

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “You'll care when it hurts so much you have to go to class without any underwear.”

  The look on my face must have been priceless. Johanna didn't stop doing imitations of it for days.

  III.

  “Remind me again how this whole thing works, Harl?”

  Harlow laughs, a sound that never ceases to amaze me. It's like water tumbling over rocks, the whoosh of a paper fan on lazy afternoon, the low hum of someone singing a lullaby in the next room.

  “I've told you everything I know six times already. You probably have the process memorized.”

  “I do. I just like hearing you say it.”

  He nods, perfectly happy to comply with my request. It's easy to see why he and Johanna are such a fantastic couple. He is the valley – deep and cool, calming and understated; she is the sun-soaked, brilliant mountain peak, the commander of attention. He's me, really, but smarter and sexier and...you know...male. I can't imagine life without either one of them.

  “So, the Algorithm attempts to pair us based on physiology, personality, and personal choice. They've been collecting DNA and doing labs on us at our Yearlies since birth. They'll give us a test tonight to ascertain our values, preferences, and idiosyncrasies, which have been in constant flux for most of our lives but are, theoretically, in the cementing stage of our development.”

  “Mmm,” purrs Johanna with vixen-like smile. “I love it when you talk like that, baby. So many syllables.”

  He grins, slides an arm around her waist, and continues. “After that, they'll allow us choose our partner based on either a number generated by the Algorithm, which uses data from the first two categories of information, or on our own personal convictions of compatibility. If we choose well, God, or some other higher power, will let us live; if we choose poorly, The Curse will end our lives, either immediately, or within a few years. Or so the story goes. You already know my thoughts about that, Brynn.”

  I do know his thoughts. Harlow hadn't actually learned about the processes involved in the Passing ceremony until he encountered them in a gen-ed class at the University, a fact that boggled my mind, since his father was one of the three scientists who developed the Algorithm itself.

  “What, he never talked to you about his work at all?” I remember asking him during a particularly revealing late-night study session in one of the libraries on campus.

  “You've met him, Brynn,” said Harlow as he scrolled through the introduction to a case study that looked to be several thousand pages long. “He's not exactly an open-book kind of guy.”

  I took a sip of coffee, which I hated, but forced myself to drink since finals were fast approaching and I was way behind. It was true. Harlow's father was an observer of the world, not an active participant in it. In my few experiences with him, I had learned most of his thoughts thanks to the constant chattering of his wife, who would simply throw out every possible assessment of a given situation and wait for him to nod his agreement to one of them.

  “Okay, then,” I persisted, “why didn't you start conversations with him? Weren't you curious how everything worked?”

  Harlow shrugged and pushed a hand into his thick black hair, which he was growing long because Johanna had decided she liked it that way this month. “I don't know. I guess not. I never really thought about the Passing at all until I met her.” He motioned toward Johanna, who was asleep on her textbook, mouth wide open. Even with a small amount of drool puddling beneath her cheek, she managed to look beautiful. Harlow smiled absently.

  “Now,” he said, “it seems like the most important thing in the world.”

  I let him work for a while in silence, pondering the seriousness of the bond between my two friends.

  “Harlow?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you believe in the curse?”

  He laughed and scratched his nose with his stylus. “Rough question to put to the guy who's father's employment depends on it.”

  I gave a small smile and waited. He looked at me for a long time.

  “No,” he said finally. “I don't believe in it. Or, more accurately, I don't believe the evidence is strong enough to support it. In fact, I think critical evidence against it may very well have been hidden.”

  My stomach twisted at that. “What do you mean?”

  “I...have a lot of work to do before I can back up any of my hypothesis, but...okay. So, modern theology is based on the texts of the three major world religions before the great war – Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, with the majority of prophetic citation coming from the former. Following?”

  I nodded. “My father quotes the Bible often. Specifically the section of Isaiah.”

  “Right. The verses about the great war and the curse, and the joining together of the remnant of survivors. My father quotes them as well. And there's nothing specifically wrong with that...except that those are, with a few exceptions, the only verses I ever hear at the Assemblies every month. I've hacked the sub-internet for more of the Bible, and I must tell you that what I've found doesn't seem to match up with what we've been told our entire lives. The God of those scriptures bears only vague resemblance to the God of the curse. Still, it's the missing parts that worry me most.”

  “Missing parts?”

  “There were supposed to have been 66 books in all, or 73 according to some, but I've never been able to find the Bible in it's entirety. Nor the Koran, nor the Shruti and Smriti. There are excerpts everywhere, but from the information I've been able to gather, large portions of those texts have simply vanished. Which is not only unlikely to ever happen by accident, given the amount of information we've retained from before the war...it would also take a considerable amount of effort to make happen even on purpose. So, all this to say...I think that if the curse is supposed to be of God, and our best information about God has mysteriously gone missing, well....there is room for skepticism.”

  Despite the warmth of the room, I felt a wave of something cold and dark rush over me.

  “If there is no curse,” I said slowly, my voice low and quiet, “then why are we dying?”

  Harlow shook his head at me. “I don't know,” he murmured, almost to himself. “But if it's within my power, I plan to find out.”

  I remember feeling incredibly proud of him at that moment, as well as mind-numbingly afraid. If the curse wasn't of God, then
it was of men. And despite my naivety about the world, I knew men didn't like having their plans unraveled.

  “Be careful,” I finally said to him. “And for heaven's sake, don't ever mention any of your suspicions to my father. He'd never let me see or speak to you again.”

  With a chuckle, Harlow promised me he never would.

  IV.

  We've passed through the second and third gates, forming a tighter and tighter group as we go, so that now we must almost appear to be in marching formation. I catch bits of conversation from the two girls next to me. Apparently, one of them is the youngest of six children. She's seen her brother and four sisters go through the Passing and “couldn't be less nervous if she was home watching TV and popping muscle relaxants.” At the mention of her siblings, I am hit with an unexpected stab of memory that I quickly try to suppress.

  “Ugh,” I moan. “I have a headache.”

  “Called it! I brought you ibuprofen!” chirps Johanna, anticipating my needs, as usual. “Here.” She pulls a tiny vial from her clutch. In it are four little red Advil. I take two and hand it back to her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  She grins at me and snaps the clasp shut. “Any time, Pumpkin.”

  “So, Brynn,” says Harlow, turning to me with a rare, teasing smirk on his face. “You want to go get toasted after the ceremony? Celebrate with a little post-passing-party? I seem to remember you having quite the love affair with the strawberry martinis at The Patio....”

  “Ahem. That was one time, after a rough day, and it was your girlfriend who kept ordering me refills when I wasn't paying attention. Also, in my opinion, you're being awfully cavalier about this whole situation. We could all be dead tomorrow.”

  “All the more reason to go hard tonight. If we do, in fact, die, then we don't have to deal with the hangover. See? Win-win. Plus, it will give us a chance to really get to know your, ah, your...”

  “If you say husband, Harlow Stone, I will punch you into the apocalypse.”

  Johanna giggles at this, causing the guy in front of us to glance backward. It's funny to watch hope dance into his eyes when he catches sight of Johanna, then dance out just as quickly when she leans into Harlow's shoulder and stares him down. He turns back around, and Johanna smiles at me, moving right along.

  “I'm just excited to see the look on your father's face when you bring home someone he can't stand. Like a construction worker. Or a Democrat. Oooooh, or a street-artist. Can you imagine the full-on flip-out Perry Bowen will have if he finds out his one and only child has ended up with a lowly freelancer as her partner for life?”

  And just like that, the memory is back. Only this time, I'm unable to push it down.

  I'm not my father's one and only child. Or at least I wasn't at one time. My parents had another daughter, sixteen years before they got pregnant with me. No one knows this – not Johanna, not Harlow – shoot, I myself didn't know it until two years ago, on the first and only night I've ever brought a love interest to meet my parents.

  I've only had three boyfriends, total. The first was Jonas, a curly-haired, socially inept kid in my expos. class my freshman year of college. I mostly dated him because he asked, and I hadn't yet learned how to turn anyone down. Johanna broke up with him for me, but she swore that was the last time she was getting involved in my romantic endeavors. So I had to end the next one myself. Allen. A self-absorbed body-builder and fairly impressive dancer with a penchant for sliding his hand beneath my skirt and an inability to grasp the very simple phrase, “No, I will not make out with you.” And then, a few years ago, I met Seth, a vet tech at the animal hospital where I worked as a receptionist. He was quiet but friendly, intelligent, athletic. He played the violin and spoke three of the old languages, just for fun. He took me to dinner, and a play, and opened doors, and helped me with my coat. He actually owned a car for purely personal use, which was a rarity in the City and required a special permit. Given all the check-marks I was ticking off my list, it was safe to say that I was hooked.

  We'd been exclusive for eight months before I gathered the courage to ask him to dinner with my parents.

  “I don't want to make you nervous,” I told him as we made our way to my childhood home (he had insisted on driving me, though our destination was a mere mile from my apartment), “but this could be a disaster.”

  “I thought you liked your parents.”

  “I do.”

  “So what's the problem?”

  I thought about it. I wasn't really sure what the problem was. I just had a terribly bad feeling.

  “I dunno...I guess I feel like they might be hard on you. I'm all they've got, you know.”

  Seth just laughed and pulled my hand up to his lips, kissing it softly. “Duly noted. But I think I can handle a couple of overprotective parents.”

  I smiled at him, thinking he looked sharp and attractive in a dinner jacket and jeans. “I really hope you're right.”

  My parents were waiting on the porch when we pulled into the drive. Dad stood, straight-backed and stoic, as usual, his slender torso clad in a stiff shirt and tie. I felt my heart sink when I noticed the hard set of his face, the way his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. He looked ready to do battle. My mother sat behind him on the porch swing in a full length skirt, her face serene and her hands clasped in her lap. She looked ready to do exactly what my father told her to, as usual.

  We were halfway through the delicious pork tenderloin that my mother had prepared when I started to relax. Talk at the table had focused on Seth's family and career goals, and both of my parents had smiled at Seth's description of his recent (and disastrous) trip to the ski slope with his favorite uncle. It seemed like the evening might slide into a categorical success. And then my dad shifted gears.

  “So, Seth. I understand you'll be going through the Passing in a few months.”

  I nearly fell off my chair. I knew, of course, that Seth would be Passing soon. We'd even talked about it a few times. I was privately nurturing the hope that he might ask me to pass with him, early, which happened on occasion. It was technically risky, because the Algorithm worked best within hours of a subject's birthday. If I passed early, my result would be skewed, and our compatibility would be uncertain. But people did it, if they felt strongly enough about the person they were with, and there were numerous success stories. Harlow's older brother, Jackson, was one of them. Still, I hadn't mentioned my hopes to anyone, least of all Seth, so I hadn't thought the subject would come up tonight. I should have known. My father had always been able to read me like an instruction manual. He knew I was in too deep. Knew this wasn't just “having fun before real life sets in,” as I'm sure my mother presumed. I felt like someone were dropping rocks into my stomach, one by one.

  “Yes, sir,” Seth was saying. “March 15th is my birthday. Beware the Ides, yeah?”

  My father loved Shakespeare; it was our one shared interest. Seth's comment should have made him chuckle. He didn't.

  “I hardly think it's wise to joke about something that will mean life or death for you in a very short time. The Curse is practically a living entity. God will not be mocked.”

  Seth swallowed. Paused.

  “I don't believe in God, sir. Nor the curse.”

  My eyes widened and I stopped chewing. This was news to me. I'd been to several worship assemblies with Seth and never once noticed any signs of insincerity or discomfort. My father cleared his throat and gave Seth a long look.

  “What, then,” he said slowly, “is your explanation for why each member of our race must form a strong marriage in order to live past 25 years of age?”

  “There are many possibilities, actually. A virus, for example. A DNA mutation requiring mutually parasitic relationships. Superstition, perhaps – beliefs that have become so ingrained in our psyches that they become self-fulfilling prophesies.” Seth reached for his wine glass and took a sip, a motion that seemed innocuous at the time, but now appears in my memory as an act drenched in the utmost arroganc
e. “Or, perhaps,” he said with weighty intention, “the deaths are a way for the government to exercise absolute control over the genetic makeup of future generations, while weeding out nonconformists from the population.”

  Oh. Shit.

  The silence that followed was so absolute that I could hear the dying moans of my dreams. My muscles were suddenly taut; my eyes flicked like a metronome from my father's reddening face to my boyfriend's smug one and back again, wishing there were some way I could cut the last three minutes of conversation out of my life and paste it in someone else's. Because there was no way that my father, with his ardent, perhaps even blind faith, and his lifelong dedication to his work, was going to give Seth his stamp of approval now.