She smiles wide.
Cyrus nods to me. “Basha and I will find Delphina and make sure everything’s okay.” He takes Basha by the elbow, and they’re out the door before I can say anything else. When I turn to Kamali, she’s staring at me with solemn eyes.
“I want you to be the artem medalist, Eli.”
“Well, that makes two of us.”
In silence, we leave her apartment and head to my studio. I don’t know what to say. She’s a gold medalist. She could ascend. Instead, she’s going to end up in exile. Or worse. And it terrifies her… yet she’s going to go through with it. And try to help me win as well.
I’m kind of in awe of her right now.
“Do you really believe all those things Delphina said? In her performance, I mean.”
“Yes.” She says it quietly, like she doesn’t want to discuss it, so I drop it. Soon we arrive at my studio, and I key us in. I forgot that I had left the broken canvases strewn around the floor until I see Kamali’s arched eyebrows.
“Going that well, is it?” She gives me a look like she’s not entirely convinced I’m not doing drugs after all.
“It was a long night.” I hurry around, picking up the canvases and shoving them out the trash chute. Then I set up a new canvas, settle in front of it, and just stare. This is how the last dozen have gone.
She comes to stand behind me.
“What’s our strategy here?” I ask. “Because I’m all out of ideas.”
She grabs a chair and sets it down next to my canvas, backwards. She sits, facing me, legs straddling the chair, arms languidly draped in front of it, studying me. The post-dance, post-win glow has returned to her face, now that the fear has passed, and I’m struck once again by her beauty. I could spend days, weeks, painting her and never grow tired of it.
But we don’t have that much time. Either one of us.
She cocks her head to the side. “You’re sad. Why? Are you worried about losing?”
“No,” I say reflexively. “Well, yes, of course. But that wasn’t why.”
She waits, but I’m not sure I want to tell her. I take a breath. “I’m afraid I won’t have many more chances to paint you.”
I’m not sure what reaction I was hoping for, but the frown on her face wasn’t it.
After a moment, she says, “Why do you paint?”
“Um… what?”
“Sometimes, when I’m stressed about a performance, I meditate. Try to restore some balance.” She ducks her head, then peers shyly at me. “Sometimes I pray.”
“I… don’t pray.” I hope that doesn’t offend her. “I mean, it’s just not my thing. My mom does. A lot.” She always did, but it’s taken a serious kick up since she got sick. It has to be a natural reaction to the fact that she might be dying. But I don’t say any of that.
“You don’t have to pray.” Her smile is back. “Meditation works just as well. You just need a way to relax your mind. For me, most times, I focus on why I dance. What it means to me. It helps to center me again.”
“Okay.” I don’t say that I’ve never meditated either. If Cyrus were here, he’d be laughing at me, I’m sure of it.
“Close your eyes.”
I stare at her a moment, soaking in her lovely face, memorizing it, then I close my eyes.
“Clear your mind. There is no competition. No medals. No future. Just the present. Picture a place where you’ve been happy while painting. At peace while you mixed your colors and put them on the canvas.”
I’m not seeing anything but the image of her face, speaking to me. But it still calms me, just like watching her dance seemed to work the knots from my shoulders. Slowly the tension eases out of my body, trickling down like a small waterfall leaking out of my feet on the floor.
“Are you picturing that contented space, where you were once happy with your art?”
I nod, even though I’m not, but then an image pops into my mind of painting with my mom. It’s no different than a hundred other times, back when she was healthy, when we’d sit side-by-side, her painting something beautiful, me scrawling something passable. But I was happy. Content. It was before I had a sense there was something else, something more, lurking inside me. That I was somehow losing in a competition with my own abilities.
“You’re safe in that place.” Kamali’s voice is softer now, floating over the scene. “At peace with your art. You let it flow from you without effort. Without thought.”
I feel myself nodding slightly, and in the scene I’m lifting my brush, sweeping it across, making silly lines that make no sense, but the colors are splendid. Vivid. My mother smiles, love spilling from her eyes, like happy tears.
“Now reach deeper into that place of peace. Hold onto it. Make it yours.”
My mother’s brilliant blue eyes capture me. Make it yours, she says without sound, just her lips moving. Make it yours. I reach out to touch her smiling face…
The room washes away like watercolor, and in my mother’s place sits a craggy-faced man with bushy hair and beret. Make it yours, he says to me, only this time I hear it, like a clear bell has rung in my mind. I look all around the room, and I should feel panic, because the walls have transformed into ancient rock lined with thick benches, their wood seeped with a hundred days of paint, but I don’t panic, because there’s no room for tiny emotions here in this place, only expansive creation. Great art is made here. I can feel it, like the warmth from the nearby hearth or the sticky oil of the paints that cling to the brushes lined up in a row on the bench.
This is all yours, the man says again, voice ringing, vowels overlapping, all making sense, but somehow separated into pieces as small as molecules. His eyes are dark but kind, his skin lined with age, but there’s wisdom tucked beneath every crevice of flesh. I know his face, but can’t place it.
Why am I here? I ask him. My words are like raindrops on a drum, vibrating sound and mixing together.
This belongs to you, he says, leaning closer. You belong to this. Dit is waar je zult vinden de meeste en de natuurlijkste beweeglijkheid.
He is speaking in Dutch now, but I understand him, because the music of his words has no anchor in language. He’s saying, This is where you will find your greatest and most natural passage. Which I both understand as some kind of instruction or map and also completely don’t understand at all. Then he gestures with a wrinkled hand to the canvas which is filled with living color. It moves under his touch and seems to float, as if he has drawn out the spirit of the work to hover over it.
I reach out to touch it, and the ghostly color draws toward my hand…
“Eli!”
My eyes jerk open. Kamali stands in front of me, towering over where I’m seated, holding my cheeks in both her hands. Her eyes are wild and concerned.
“Eli,” she says again, only this time it’s with relief, not panic. She’s searching my eyes, still holding my face. “Are you okay? Say something, Eli!”
“I’m okay,” I say, tongue thick, but only because she’s holding me so tightly.
She senses it and drops her hands, stepping back from me. “You… you stopped responding to me, and I didn’t know…”
I blink, still in a fog, but then I realize: I was in the fugue state.
I knock the chair backward with how fast I stand. There are no residual tremors, no shaking, none of the symptoms of before. I spin to the canvas next to us, but it’s still snow-white. Pristine. Not a drop of paint.
My shoulders sag.
“What happened?” Kamali’s voice has a tremble in it now. She’s wrapped her arms around her slender frame, pulling back, afraid.
“I was there. In the fugue state,” I say quickly. I turn to her. “How long was I out?”
“I don’t know… it must have been five or ten minutes.”
Five or ten minutes? It was mere seconds in the fugue world.
“I almost called Cyrus,” she says. “I was afraid I’d—” She cuts herself off, pulling tighter with her arms.
Her gaze sneaks past me to the canvas.
I drop my hands from her shoulders. “I don’t know why I didn’t paint this time. I mean, I was almost painting in the hallucination. Maybe if it had gone on just a little longer…”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Her face is scrunched up. “You were… I was afraid you’d…”
I’ve freaked her out, that much is clear. But I’m fine, and I can’t help floating with elation. I skip over to the paint cabinet, scoop up a handful of tubes and another of brushes, and bring them back to the palette.
“We have to try again,” I say. “We are so close, Kamali. I can feel it.”
She takes a deep breath, hesitates, then nods. I open some paints and leave the brushes and pencil within reach. We sit again, like we were before, only this time I’m in front of the canvas. I close my eyes, and she walks me through it, but I can hear the tremble in her voice. And my body is amped with excitement.
I get up, shake it off, and we try again. And again. And a fourth time, but I know we’re getting nowhere. Eventually, I see her sneaking looks to the wall screen. It’s almost past the dinner hour, and I’m sure she hasn’t eaten all day.
And we’re stuck.
“You should go,” I say, finally.
“I’m fine. We can try again.”
“No.” It comes out too harsh, so I send her an apologetic look. “I just need a break is all. I’ll try again later.” Later means well into the night. Whatever it takes to figure this thing out.
She stands up from the chair she’s been haunting this whole time, trying to recreate the magic of that first session. “They’re going to lock down soon. I won’t be able to come back and help.”
I step over to her and take her hands in mine. “It’s okay. You’ve already given me something I’ve never had before.”
“What’s that?” Her eyes are wide, but she looks tired. She needs some rest before tomorrow. The day when I’m going to try to win ascendance, and she’s going to give it up.
“You made me believe I could actually do this.”
She smiles and slides her arms around my neck. My body melts into hers, and suddenly I’m thinking of reasons to have her stay.
“You can do this,” she whispers in my ear, and in that instant I have no doubt it’s true.
She slides away from me and leaves before I can come up with a decent reason for her to stay. Which is probably just as well.
I need to practice finding my fugue state.
The frustration is about to kill me.
I spend the rest of the evening trying to induce the fugue… to no avail. I try meditating. I envision Kamali sitting next to me. I conjure her lilting French-accented voice in my head. I do everything that could possibly bring the fugue state back to within my reach… and nothing. I finally give up when I destroy the blank canvas in front of me instead of painting on it.
It’s like I’m right back where I started. Like the fugue is some capricious demon that’s taunting all my pathetic efforts and laughing in the face of the idea that I could ever control it. I leave all my canvases and paints in the studio and return to my apartment.
It’s late. I don’t sleep. Judging by the lack of snoring on Cyrus’s part, he’s not sleeping either. But he doesn’t say anything. I spend the night staring at the ceiling, trying to remember why I thought any of this was possible.
When breakfast comes in the morning, I force myself to eat, although it all tastes like paste. The lockdown is in effect. Musica is nearly done with their competition, but it seems like the minutes are dragging by on carts made of lead.
Finally, artems is up. I don’t want to watch my competitors, and Cyrus doesn’t suggest it. After an endless wait that feels like it’s eating my nerves alive, the security bot arrives to escort us to the stage. Cyrus is quiet as we trail behind our escort, letting me stew in my own anxieties.
“Thanks,” I say. The word echoes in the stillness that surrounds the soft swish of our uniforms and the mechanized creaks of the bot.
It seems to startle Cyrus out of his thoughts. “Thanks for what?”
I gesture around me. “For seeing this through. For helping me, even though…” I can’t say it, not yet. Even though I’m going to lose.
I expect him to brush it off, but instead his large frame hunches up. “Don’t thank me till it’s over.” Which is just his way of saying he believes there’s still a chance.
“When it’s over, we’ll party back in Seattle. I know a guy who knows a guy who I’m pretty sure can get us whatever mind-altering drugs we want.”
Cyrus stops suddenly and shoves me up against a wall. My eyes go wide as his meaty hands hold me there. I don’t even try to resist, more concerned about the fury on his face than anything he might do to mine. Then he’s suddenly flying backwards, lifted into the air by the security bot. The bot smashes Cyrus to the floor and holds him with one hand while training some kind of open-barreled weapon on Cyrus’s head.
“No!” I shout.
The bot doesn’t move. “Agonite Elijah Brighton, are you injured?”
“No! I’m fine.” I lurch over and hover next to the bot, hands up, unsure what to do. Cyrus is wincing in pain. “This my support team! Let him go.”
The bot eases away, its weapon sliding back into one arm as it releases Cyrus with the other. I don’t think he’s injured. Badly.
I kneel by Cyrus’s side and help him up. “Are you okay?”
He nods and gives a dirty look to the security bot.
It stands impassively, waiting for us. As soon as we’re both up, it says, “Please follow me to the agonite staging area.”
We fall in step, resuming our march down the spotless halls of Agon as if the bot didn’t just nearly kill Cyrus.
He keeps his voice low, but I can hear the anger in it. Anger for me, not the bot. “You do not give up. You go out there, and you do everything you can to win this.”
“I’m not giving up. I promise. Not until I’m walking off that stage and it’s over.”
I glance at the bot, but it’s making no moves against Cyrus. As long as he’s not physically attacking me, I guess it’s okay. Still… Cyrus and I don’t talk anymore. When we reach the decon unit, the security bot scans us in, and Leopold is waiting inside.
“Mr. Brighton!” Leopold says in a greeting that seems overly happy. “Nice to see you in my chambers again.”
I welcome the reprieve from the tension of the walk over. “I’m starting to think you have a thing for making humans undress, Leopold.” I start taking off my clothes before climbing into the decon pod.
“You’ll just have to trust me when I say your legacy bodies hold very little interest for me.”
The decon goes quickly, leaving me slimed, but passing their tests. Cyrus cycles through as well, and soon we’re through the door that leads to the holding room.
“Good luck, Mr. Brighton,” Leopold says as the heavy metal door swings shut behind us. It sounds less like well-wishing and more like an indictment. Like Leopold knows as well as I do that the chances are slim of me actually pulling this off.
Cyrus and I wait in silence in the barren holding room. The seconds tick through the stale air, each one ramping up my nerves a little more. I close my eyes, trying to focus on the calming meditation words that Kamali used to somehow induce the fugue state—but they’re empty of meaning and have no weight against the tension zinging through my body.
I take a deep breath and open my eyes just as a loud tone sounds from the staging room door. Cyrus and I both jolt from the sudden noise, but he beats me to lurching through the door as it slides open.
The wall of one-way windows lets in the per
petual sun of California, flooding the staging room with light. The stadium is filled with ascenders in their rental bodies, just like before, during the Showcase competition. There’s an artist on stage. I squint at the reflections coming off the stage, the ascender’s bodies, the bright-white backing of the artist’s canvas. My eyes adjust enough to see that it’s Katya, dressed all in black. She’s still working, a brush in each hand and another clenched between her teeth. Her blonde hair is pulled back out of the way, and she whips back and forth between the floating palette and the art she’s creating.
I’m certain it’s spectacular, even though I can’t see it.
“Eli,” Cyrus calls to me softly from the far side of the room. He’s gone to a door, probably the exit he leaves through once I’m on stage. I frown for a flash moment, thinking he’s leaving me on my own in these final minutes. Even though there’s nothing he can do, that still sends a cold gush of anxiety through my stomach.
But instead of leaving, Cyrus says, “I have someone who wants to see you.”
He activates the door, and outside stands Kamali.
I have no idea how he’s managed it—everyone and everything is supposed to be in lockdown—but somehow she’s standing there, dressed in her red drama uniform, her normal grace replaced by a strange awkwardness that doesn’t look right on her body. Her hair is undone, and it billows around her in a halo of a million tiny black ringlets. She steps inside, and Cyrus eases out past her. The door slides shut, leaving me alone with Kamali.
“How did you—” But I cut myself off as she hurries over to me, a finger held up to stop my words.
“We don’t have much time,” she says, a little breathless. Then she takes my hands in hers. I’m completely distracted by how warm and soft they are, but then she drags my attention back to her face by continuing to talk. “Take a deep, calming breath.”
I suck in a breath. As I breathe out, I say, “I don’t think this is going to—”
She cuts me off again with a stern look. “Close your eyes,” she demands.
I obey.
“Let go of the performance. Empty your mind. Think about that place you went before, the place where you were happiest with your art.”
The Legacy Human (Singularity #1) (Singularity Series) Page 21