by KT Belt
No one ever wanted to play with her. She didn’t really mind it. She never heard of anyone wanting to play with Artemis either, but Artemis was only rarely let out anyway. In any case, Carmen did enjoy watching the matches, seeing a dozen or so Clairvoyants dart around the courtyard before the quick exchanges developed. The handlers hated it. Assets weren’t supposed to fight each other, even in play.
Carmen looked at Kali and shrugged. “Sorry,” she said simply.
It seemed like she was going to say something, but she took a deep breath and shook her head instead. Finally, she asked, pointing, “Is that it?”
Carmen glanced at the bag that had been lying next to her. She had been quite serious—she did want to torch the party dress—but Kali had said setting rented property on fire would be…impolite. Carmen nodded.
“You ready?” Kali asked.
She nodded again, and the two of them began walking, Carmen holding the dress under one arm.
Her thoughts stayed on Michael as they walked. Really, she couldn’t stop thinking about him even if she wanted to. It caused her lips to tease a certain question several times, but she kept herself from giving voice to it. She desperately wanted to know what the answer would be, but she also didn’t want to breach the subject with Kali. There was no telling where things would lead in open air. So, Carmen bit her tongue and said nothing. She and Kali had walked in silence before, but she had a hard time remembering when it was ever anxious. As her handler signed the paperwork for them to leave, however, it was quite obvious that the anxiety only flowed one way.
Kali looked at Carmen when she was done. “You have something to say?” she asked. Her charge’s mouth had the look of an overfilled balloon. “What’s with you? Why are you acting so strangely?”
Carmen vigorously shook her head and then groaned softly when she realized it made her look just as crazy as she felt.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “What are you talking about?” she added, trying her best to make it sound like nothing was amiss.
“Edge?” Kali questioned.
Her tone wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t even annoyed. But it was the tone she used to warn that she could be harsh. Besides Michael, that tone was the only other thing ringing in Carmen’s head. She had to have heard it about a dozen times last night when she was being questioned. She swallowed hard when she heard it now.
“When is the next party?” she finally asked. She wanted to see Michael again, badly.
Kali exhaled loudly. “Edge, I know you hate parties, but it hasn’t even been a day since the last one,” she remarked.
Carmen looked at her handler in mild shock. Kali often said she didn’t know everything, and Carmen understood that intellectually. The reality of their four years together, however, regularly proved otherwise. This had to be the first time Kali got her intentions wrong. But before Carmen could make up her mind on whether to correct her, her handler spoke again.
“Well, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Kali continued. “After the little altercation between you and Artemis, all future parties have been postponed until there’s a full security review. They may never be reinstated. If they are, they probably won’t include non-Clairvoyant participants. There were several complaints.”
Kali spoke simply, matter-of-factly. She was totally unaware of the significance of the words that just left her mouth. Carmen’s eyes grew wide as she listened. Her hands shook.
“We didn’t even do anything!” she protested.
“Yes, but imagine if you did,” Kali pointed out. “Artemis is one of the most violent, aggressive Clairvoyants anyone has ever seen. And you two have fought before. I don’t know why you seem so bothered by it. As you tell me ad nauseum, you hate parties.”
Carmen paused as she noticed the bear trap she was about to step in. “Yes, yes, I do hate parties,” she said, folding her arms. “I’m not bothered. Thank you, I’m glad to hear it,” she added.
Kali looked her carefully up and down with a raised eyebrow. Carmen swallowed nervously, knowing she oversold herself on both sides of the argument. After a time, Kali slowly shook her head and then rolled her eyes.
“Right,” she remarked under her breath. Her charge swallowed again. “Come on, let’s go.”
Kali didn’t wait for a response and began walking. Carmen was glad for it. They walked in silence as before, but now Kali glanced at her from time to time. She could feel her soul freeze whenever her handler’s eyes neared her direction. Nothing more, however, was said between them. Carmen pursed her lips as her mind roamed. She had no idea why this was such a big deal. Kali would probably be happy about Michael. She went on and on about how assets needed to learn how to socialize, and she had spent an entire night doing just that.
But then she gamed out how the conversation would go. Kali would dissect her every second with Michael as if she were a lab animal. Her every action, no matter how mundane, would be ruthlessly critiqued on what she did “right” and, more annoyingly, what she did incorrectly. As they walked, Carmen considered what her next few hours could entail and came to the same conclusion. She’d keep Michael to herself.
They got on the same bus they had boarded hundreds of times by this point. The bus driver was still terrified of each of his passengers. Carmen always found that odd. If Clairvoyants were as dangerous as he thought, surely he should be dead by now. Nevertheless, she was able to ignore him. They sat in their usual seats, and Carmen looked out the window as the facility grew farther and farther out of view.
“You’re going to be released in two years,” Kali said nonchalantly. Carmen looked at her and noticed the faraway look in her eye. “Have you given any thought to your future?”
She thought of Michael, turned to look out the window again, and smiled.
“No, not really,” she lied. She thought about it all the time.
“Liar,” Kali remarked teasingly.
Carmen smiled again. If her handler didn’t know everything, she certainly knew most things.
“I don’t really know,” she said, getting closer to the truth.
She thought of Michael. She wondered if they could have a life together. The idea was utterly ludicrous. She’d only known him for a few hours, maybe. Ludicrous or not, it didn’t hurt to dream. After all, most of her nights were filled with nightmares.
“Really? Nothing at all?”
Carmen shook her head. Then she thought of her handler. “What about you? What happens to you after I’m released? Do you get another charge?”
“If I want,” Kali said.
“Do you?”
She looked at Carmen, who was now looking back at her. Perhaps it was something in her voice—maybe a facial expression, subtle but there all the same—or maybe, on some level, Kali could actually read her charge. Either way, she gave a knowing smirk before she answered.
“You’re a tough act to follow, Edge,” Kali said. Carmen smiled shyly and then looked out the window before the expression reached its fullest extent. “I could go through a hundred charges, but I’ll never forget you. As it is, I’d like to take some time off. Maybe another charge later, or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just do administration. But enough about me. You should think about it—about what you want. Two years will go quickly.”
The bus came to a stop in Haven City, their destination. Everywhere one could see, there were people, industry, and commerce. The two Clairvoyants didn’t get up to leave as Carmen considered her handler’s words. She considered the future…her future. Her thoughts strayed toward Michael in that future, though not completely.
“I’d like to be happy,” she replied, looking at Kali. She considered the matter further and her eyes fell. “I don’t really think I know what that means,” she muttered softly.
Kali looked at her. She had to have heard her, but she offered no advice, not even a comment. She stood, and Carmen stood with her, dress in tow. They stepped off the bus and into the maelstrom of Haven City.
Today wa
sn’t really a field trip. Today, they had purpose. Field trips were never focused on any specific task. The bus dropped them off in front of a large mall. They had been there before, even before they rented the dress.
New Earth wasn’t as cosmopolitan as Earth or Evonea. Carmen had never been off planet, but she had read about it. Kali even mentioned it in passing here and there, regretting that she wouldn’t have much of a chance to interact with “non-terrans,” as Kali politely put it. She was curious about aliens—had read about them casually and wondered how different they really were from everyone else—but could ultimately care only so much. It was more interesting how much attention Kali got from bystanders, despite being a Clairvoyant.
Asians were an exceedingly small minority group on New Earth, and Kali wasn’t even a New Earther. They walked along the crowded sidewalk, causing a small bubble around them of people trying to avoid their path. Kali was often the recipient of a curious backward glance. Carmen sometimes found the reactions humorous, but her handler didn’t seem to notice. If she did, she certainly didn’t care.
They entered the large glass superstructure of the mall. The majority of its bulk actually extended underground. She remembered getting lightheaded when Kali first told her that. The above-ground floors were no easy survey. The material wealth of Earth, the Great Colonies, and alien trading partners flowed to this grand shopping complex, and every inch reflected as much. Besides the local cuisine, there was food sourced from hundreds of cultures from more than a dozen worlds. It was much the same for fashion and almost anything else one could buy, sell, or trade. In the end, it didn’t really mean much to Carmen. She had no money. But she spent all of her first day here and still didn’t see everything. Subsequent trips still left many secrets to uncover.
“You go ahead?” Kali more said than asked.
Carmen looked at her curiously. “Alone?”
She nodded, and Carmen nervously licked her lips. Kali had never let her venture here alone before. She wasn’t really worried about anything specifically; it was just unexpected. No fanfare, no preamble, just “Go off by yourself.”
“How do I contact you?” she asked.
She was never given a PDD. Kali had one, but she was quite certain the only reason she did was to phone a suppression team if need be.
Her handler shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re a Clairvoyant, silly. If you really need to contact me, do so telepathically. If not, wait for me outside the shop. I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay,” Carmen replied, feeling slightly stupid.
Nothing else was said, and the two went their separate ways. Carmen glanced over her shoulder just before she moved out of sight. Her handler hadn’t moved from where she watched her intently. Kali didn’t seem apprehensive or expectant. She just watched. A second or so later, Carmen turned a corner, and Kali was gone.
The young Clairvoyant, for one of the first times in her life, knew exactly where she was going and why. How to get there, however, was still a bit of a mystery.
“Now, where is Idiotatopia?” she said to herself with a wry smile as various advertisements vied for her attention.
One service offered large cash rewards for people to resettle on off-world colonies. She didn’t recognize any of the names. Another mentioned a new breed of genetically massaged cat. It quite proudly stated that the new cats were more responsive to commands than unmodified cats. They even had a pair of cats to demonstrate the new revelation. A crowd of maybe twenty or so people gave commands and requested tricks, to the delight of everyone. Carmen was a little tempted to join but thought better of it. The crowd was having too much fun for her to ruin it with her presence.
There were also the usual recruitment offices and posters for Space Force and New Earth SDF. Some of the posters even depicted glorified images of the Terran-Sorten War. She took a quick glance to see if Eli’s battle on the moon was one of them, but it wasn’t. Then something did catch her eye. It wasn’t a dress burning service, as she hoped, but it did strike close to home, literally. It wasn’t a shop or even an advertisement, just a small booth asking people to sign a petition. The petition asked for the termination of forced internment and training of children to be Clairvoyants. In all her field trips, she’d never seen anything like this.
She walked toward the booth and telekinetically retrieved a pamphlet, just to make it completely clear what she was. The two middle-aged women staffing the booth looked at each other when she approached.
Carmen looked over the pamphlet, but it didn’t really say much of anything. It was simply filled with uplifting images of children, contrasted with horrible images of beaten and injured children, presumably from the facility. She didn’t know much about the functional goings-on of the place, but she doubted they allowed cameras there. Consequently, she assumed the images of the beaten kids were fabricated. They didn’t do a very good job. She had suffered much worse than anything the pamphlet showed.
She put the pamphlet back and looked at the two women. “How many signatures did you get?” she asked, curious.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” one asked.
Carmen nodded. “How many?” she repeated.
“A lot less than we would have liked,” the other woman said after a sigh.
“Why do you think that is? There have been protests at the facility. People want it to move, right?”
“Facility?”
Carmen looked at the woman, curious as to how she didn’t know what the facility was. “The facility…where I’m from. What your pamphlet is about?”
“Oh, the training center,” the first woman said.
“Everyone calls it the facility,” Carmen pointed out.
“You call it the facility? I guess ‘training center’ sounds less ominous than ‘facility.’”
Carmen shrugged. She’d never thought about it before.
“Anyway, it’s real name is—”
“I don’t really care,” she interrupted politely. “My handlers have said that part of the reason for the facility is that some Clairvoyant children who weren’t tempered turned violent against their parents or others. Is that true?”
The women leaned back in their chairs. They looked like they didn’t want to say any more—like they didn’t want to admit it was possible. But eventually they both nodded.
“Yes, yes, that’s true. Just last week, an entire town was nearly wiped out by a four-year-old,” one of them said. “The only reason he was captured was because he passed out. It caused new debate. Some are saying children should be interned younger than six. But you know better than us what they do in those training centers. The government doesn’t like to talk about it, but a few details do leak out.”
She went on, but Carmen largely didn’t hear her. She thought of her time at the facility. For the first time, she wondered if it was possibly a good thing that she was taken there. Her parents had always been uncomfortable and sad around her, but she couldn’t remember if she’d ever threatened them.
“If you don’t mind,” the woman continued, “I have my PDD here. If you can say a few things, it would certainly help us out to have a firsthand account.”
Carmen waved the idea away. The thought of saying out loud what was on her mind made her knees shake. There was one thing, though.
“So, most people want us housed in facilities, and no one wants those facilities near where they live,” she said more to herself than to them. If she wasn’t monster, and if she didn’t feel like a monster, she was sure treated like one.
“Oh, they do eventually let you out,” the other woman said. Her tone was soft and gentle, like she was trying to cheer her up. “They can’t keep you locked up forever. Just keep your head about yourself, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh well,” the woman stammered. “Haven’t been too many of you lot released. It is a new program after all.” Carmen nodded. “But the ones that have been released have had trouble. They have tro
uble adjusting. Trouble finding any work other than military or mercenary. It’s near impossible for them to meet or keep romantic partners.”
Carmen gave a quick shiver when she heard that. The feeling came and went in an instant, but it left her feeling empty all the same. She glanced upward, through the glass and steel pillars of the mall, and tried to look at the clouds. They were partially obscured by the skyscrapers of Haven City all around her, giving her the feeling of being sunk deep in a well.
“There have been a few suicides,” the woman continued. “Hardly gets reported, but it certainly happens.”
Carmen looked away from them. Once again, she thought of the future—her future. She couldn’t help another shiver.
“I know I’ll be released. We are told at least that,” she remarked, her voice hollow. The two women were about to say something else, but she spoke first. “Thank you.” Kali always told her to be polite. “I have to go.” Then she disappeared into the crowd without waiting to hear their response.
Carmen held herself for a few seconds until the conversation with the women could be forgotten. By this point in her life, ignoring or flat-out forgetting the unpleasant was practically a reflex. Focusing on her mission helped. Unfortunately, the store where she needed to return the regal robes of Idiotatopia wasn’t on this level. She couldn’t remember exactly which level it was on, which prompted her to walk toward a large map. A crowd was already examining the map, but it dispersed when she approached. No screaming, no drama; they just all went away. It wasn’t a new phenomenon, but this time it made her pause.
She didn’t exactly look forward to when she was released, but she didn’t fear it either. In light of her recent conversation, though, Carmen couldn’t help but wonder. Before, it was just the daunting magnitude of choice she’d have when she was finally and truly on her own. Now, for the first time, she considered she may have no real choice at all. She couldn’t even stand next to people without them shying away. How was she supposed to work with them? How was she supposed to find a place to live? Kali gave her etiquette lessons. They were silly, but it was better than nothing. Nevertheless, Carmen’s handler completely glossed over the fact that, no matter how polite she was, people would only consort with her if they wanted to, and only a handful did. She thought of Michael and last night again. She must have dreamed it.