Asimov's SF, June 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Caitlin feels sorry for him. He can't be more than thirteen, skinny and pimply and scared, with ears that stick out like mailboxes. He only arrived on their floor yesterday, when Michael was transferred to another ward, and Caitlin knows what lies ahead for him. Roth, that fat prick, is already sharpening his talons. To make it worse, Seth is sitting next to Josh, blond and green-eyed Josh, who is probably the hottest guy Caitlin has ever seen. The contrast is painful.

  Dr. Jensen says, “Who wants to start the review?”

  “I will,” Pam says. Of course. Seena rolls her eyes: Suck-up. Caitlin grins.

  Group is held in the lounge, a light-green room as windowless as all the others in the Manhattan Institute for Adolescent Behavior. A glass wall separates the room from the corridor where Hardin, three hundred pounds of fat and muscle, lounges on duty. Dr. Jensen perches on the edge of a chair as if she's about to take flight. Her head tilts to one side. The eight teenage patients—four of each sex, Seena said once, like we're going to hold a fucking prom—sprawl on sofas and arm chairs whose stuffing peeks from various slashes. Seena sits on the floor, her bones jutting sharply from her shoulders, wrists, cheeks. Caitlin wishes she looked like Seena, but the only way she could get that slim would be to vomit up absolutely everything she eats, and she can't even bring herself to stick her fingers down her throat. Also the staff might hear her puking and put her in time-out, and she can't take that chance.

  Pam, her eyes feverish with the desire for praise, recites carefully. “Cathcart is a brain disorder. People think they see reflections of people who aren't really there, who may be projects of—”

  “'Projections of,'” Dr. Jensen corrects gently.

  “Yeah, projections of parts of the person's personality. Parts that they, uh, like are rejecting.”

  Seth looks even more scared. Dr. Jensen says, “Very good, Pam.” Seena mimes barfing.

  Roth sneers, “It would be even better if she had the slightest idea what any of that means.”

  “I know what it means!” Pam says. Her face reddens.

  “Yeah? What?” Roth gives her the nastiest smile Caitlin has ever seen from him, which is saying something. Roth is a pig, but he's smart. “Explain narcissistic projection to us, Pam.”

  “That's enough, Roth,” Dr. Jensen says.

  “Yeah, Crotch, that's enough,” Seena says. She's told Caitlin that her goal is to get Roth to blow up in Group so that Hardin will take him down. So far this has not happened.

  Roth says to Seena, “Your attempt at wordplay is pathetic beyond belief.”

  “Better than your crotch play.” Just last week, Seena caught Roth masturbating. “Now that was pathetic.”

  “Enough, both of you!” Dr. Jensen says. Seena grins at Caitlin. Roth clenches his fists. He's not as big as Hardin, but his fists remind Caitlin of bananas curled into the fetal position. “Pam, have you seen any of your projections since our last Group?”

  “Just the old lady in the hop skirt.”

  “Hoop skirt,” Caitlin says, before she can stop herself. Pam's bestial stupidity irritates Caitlin, although she knows it's not poor Pam's fault. Pam is a born butt, dithery and moronic and terrified of pissing off anybody in power. How did Pam ever survive on the streets before she entered the Institute? How did Caitlin? If she was on the streets, if that's what really happened. There's so much she can't remember. Since she came here time has folded up on itself like one of those Mobius strips she learned about ... where?

  Dr. Jensen says, “Anybody else see any of their projections? Josh? Sam?”

  Josh, who sees his people in standing liquid, saw The Boy Who Talks To Dogs in his breakfast milk. Dr. Jensen's bird-flat eyes sharpen. Caitlin has noticed that some “projections” interest the doctors and therapists more than others. Josh says, “He had this big dog with him, a Bernese Mountain.”

  “Are you sure of the breed?” Dr. Jensen says.

  “Yeah. I remember from ... before.” Josh's handsome face spasms, as it always does when he mentions Before. Sometimes Caitlin thinks she can feel his attempts at recall, reflections of her own vain efforts. Yet some things are perfectly clear. History. Physics. Literature. “A rose red city, half as old as Time....”

  “And what do you think the boy talking to the dog represents?” Dr. Jensen's eyes are less sharp now. Less invested, Caitlin thinks.

  Josh says doubtfully, “Memories I'm rejecting about dogs?”

  “Could be. We'll talk about it in the one-on-one.” She smiles at him. Caitlin hates that Josh smiles back. “Anybody else?”

  Jasmine, a tiny black girl with the features of a movie star, saw The Pirate in a corner of her room. Roth has seen a few kids on bicycles. Sam shakes his head. He never talks in Group, not a word, although he must say something in one-on-one, or surely Dr. Jensen would ride him harder? Sam is a tall half-Chinese kid, older than the rest, maybe even twenty. Muscles ripple along his arms. There's a look in his black eyes that makes everybody leave him alone, even Roth.

  “And our scholar?” Dr. Jensen says. “Caitlin?”

  “Nothing,” Caitlin says flatly. Seena grins.

  “Are you sure, Caitlin?” Dr. Jensen says gently, almost pityingly: You can be one of us if you just cooperate.

  “I'm sure.”

  “I saw something,” Seena says. “I saw a naked black guy with this incredibly huge—”

  “That's enough, Seena!”

  “Don't you want to know about my projections, doc? They're a lot better than brown-nose Pam's.”

  Pam says, “I'm not—”

  Seena says, “Sure you are. You give the fucking jailers whatever they want. A clear case of Stockholm Syndrome.”

  “Stock ... I thought it was Cathcart Sindom?” Pam says, bewildered, and Roth whoops with laughter.

  “God, you're dumber than a bucket of hair!”

  Pam starts to cry. Jasmine puts a tentative hand on her arm. Dr. Jensen starts to say something but it's drowned out by Roth, who howls, “Even dumber than Jasmine is dirty!” Jasmine, who does hate to shower although nobody knows why, looks up and her pretty face crumples. And then all at once Sam is flying through the air, landing on Roth with both hands around Roth's fat neck.

  People scream. Hardin barrels through the door, tries to pull Sam off Roth, fails. Dr. Jensen yells, “Security!” and pushes buttons on her handheld. Seth crawls behind the sofa. Pam goes on screaming long after everybody else has stopped. Josh takes advantage of the chaos to dash toward the locked front door. Two more orderlies rush in and grab Sam.

  Seena rolls on the floor in helpless laughter, her anorectic bones revealing knobs like misaligned gear heads. “Sam is in love with Jasmine! Who knew!”

  Caitlin slips out of the room after Josh. She's smiling but she also feels the need to get away. Another crazy day at the crazy farm, growing wild weeds. Josh has already been collared by Security. In the girls’ bathroom, Caitlin gazes into the mirror. She sees a black man dressed in rough brown wool, a ringleted child in a white dress and heavy brown shoes, and the boy in the wired purple garbage bags. He seems to look directly at Caitlin. She scowls at him, and after a moment he shoots her the finger and turns away.

  * * * *

  Caitlin sits across from Dr. Covell in one-on-one. He says, “Why won't you admit that you see any of your projections, Caitlin? You're the smartest patient here, by far, and older than the rest except for Sam. You test with an IQ in the genius range, so I know you're intelligent and educated enough to realize that the first step toward getting well is admitting you have a disorder.”

  He—all of them—always make it sound like some transient condition from outside: You have a cold, you have the flu, you have a disorder. Something that can be rooted out with proper medication and bed rest. Caitlin looks away from him. He's fairly young, with dark hair and long thick eyelashes and a great body. Could Dr. Jensen actually be stupid enough to think Caitlin would respond to this man just because he's a hottie? Maybe Dr. Jensen is that st
upid ... never underestimate the stupidity of the desperate.

  Desperate. Now why did she think that about Dr. Jensen?

  She says, “I don't see any projections.”

  “Then why do you think you're here, Caitlin?”

  “I can't remember why.” This is true. Teen runaways—that's what they were all told they were. Maybe so, although the term seems far too daring, too adventurous, for what Caitlin knows herself to be.

  Dr. Covell says, “What were you wondering about just then?” His eyes scratch at her face.

  “I was wondering why there's no TV anywhere here.”

  “No, you weren't.”

  “And no windows, either.”

  “Both bring in more of the outside world than you're ready to deal with,” Dr Covell says.

  “Bullshit,” Caitlin says, surprising herself.

  “I think, Caitlin, you may have been hanging out too much with Seena.”

  Fright takes Caitlin. They could transfer Seena, as they transferred Michael. Caitlin can't survive in this alien place without Seena.

  The weakness of confusion must show on her face because Dr. Covell abruptly attacks. “When you said ‘Fuck off’ into the mirror this morning, who were you talking to?”

  Caitlin stares at him. The bathroom is bugged, maybe even has cameras. Have they watched Caitlin shower, pee, shit? Her face grows hot. But she's proud of her level tone when she says, “I think you may have a civil-rights lawsuit on your hands.”

  “I said you were intelligent.” His tone is admiring. She hates him.

  “I'm intelligent enough to know you must have informed all our parents that we're here. How come nobody has visited any of us?”

  “We can't locate relatives for anyone in your ward. Your fingerprints aren't on file anywhere and, remember, you couldn't even supply your own names. ‘Caitlin’ is a name you chose for yourself when you arrived.”

  This is true. Caitlin has harrowed her brain looking for her real name, her real self, but found nothing. Dr. Covell gazes at her. She senses that he is smarter than Dr. Jensen, and so more dangerous. She leans back in her chair, pretending nonchalance, knowing that he recognizes the pretense. Her heart hammers. “My former name is irrelevant to me.”

  “And are your projections ‘irrelevant,’ too?”

  “I don't see any projections.”

  “Then you were talking to yourself in the mirror?”

  “Yes. I don't like my looks. I wish I looked like Seena or Jasmine.”

  For a nanosecond he looks uncertain. What she said could plausibly account for that “Fuck off,” to the mirror, since her statement is completely accurate. She'd give anything for Seena's elegant boniness, for Jasmine's petite femininity. Dr. Jensen's plan, if that's what it was, has been turned against itself. This man would never underestimate the value of physical beauty.

  “You're a pretty young woman,” he says with a therapist's combination of prim decorum and professional reassurance.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Yes.” But he suspects that he's been played, she can sense it from his face, and his need to control the situation reasserts itself. He says, “It would just be better if you spent less time with Seena.”

  She nods, shrugs, leaves. She grips her hands together as tightly as Sam gripped Roth in Group. Seena is her only friend here. Seena, who takes chances on everything, including befriending Caitlin. Caitlin would never have made the first move. And it is Seena who gives her the strength to keep silent about the people in the mirror, to keep at least that for herself in a place where nothing else is private. She cannot lose Seena, too.

  The glass window on Dr. Covell's office door reflects Caitlin's face as she leaves. Her face, and the woman with the baby on her hip.

  * * * *

  Caitlin awakes in bed, in total blackness, to find a hand over her mouth. Terror swamps her like a long rolling wave, but before she can bite the hand or scream around it, Seena says, “It's me, don't scream! Slide over.”

  Completely disoriented, Caitlin moves toward the wall and feels Seena's body fit close to hers in the narrow bed. Caitlin whispers, “What happened to the lights?” The Institute is always at least half-lit. “And how did you—”

  “Dunno. Maybe some kind of power blackout. I just crawled along out of sight to your room. Come on, we're getting out.”

  “What?” Now Caitlin can hear people in the hall, calling to each other. Hardin bellows something unintelligible. Even before her door opens, Seena has slid over Caitlin, toward the wall, and dropped soundlessly behind the bed. A flashlight shines into the room and someone says softly, “Caitlin?” She lies still, eyes closed, her breathing as regular as she can make it. The door closes.

  “How—”

  Seena says, “All the power is off, cameras and e-locks and all their prison shit. Come on.” In the blackness she fumbles for Caitlin's hand. Caitlin doesn't move. Seena says, “What the ... you want to stay in here?”

  “No.” But she's terrified to leave, to act. Still, all she has to do is follow Seena.

  She yanks the blankets up over her pillow and rounds them like a body. Seena pulls her along, but not toward the door ... if the door is indeed where Caitlin thinks it is in the total blackness. Where are they going? The first thing Hardin would do is barricade the door to the ward. All at once she realizes: the closet. It's no more than a doorless alcove with a clothes pole but no hangers—can't give mental patients anywhere to hide or anything to hurt themselves with—but in the ceiling is a panel with an e-lock.

  She whispers to Seena, “Don't try to climb on the clothes pole. It's not strong enough.”

  “I know. Get down on all fours. Quick!”

  Seena climbs on Caitlin's back. Despite Seena's height, she can't weigh more than ninety pounds. Wood creaks faintly as she pushes open the panel. Caitlin thinks, She'll get up there but I can never do it. ... She is too heavy, too stiff. Seena climbs down and whispers, “It's open. Stand on me and go up.”

  “But I—”

  “Just the fuck do it!”

  Caitlin feels with her foot for Seena's bony back. Under her bare toes it feels like walking on sharp pebbles. Her hands grope wildly for the edge of the opening in the ceiling. She finds it, but there's no way she can haul herself that far upwards....

  “I'm here,” a voice says softly from above. Josh.

  For a second she's so dizzy that she actually thinks she might fall. Then his groping hands find hers and pull. Caitlin gives a little jump on Seena's back—oh, God, what if she breaks it?—and Josh hauls her over the edge like a beached whale. He shoves her aside and reaches down for Seena, so much lighter, so much fitter.... Caitlin feels Seena land beside her and hears the panel close.

  She can smell Josh, a masculine odor that sends blood rushing into her face. She's never been so close to him. Her most fervent hope is that he never figured out how often she dreamed of this, never saw her eyes tracking his every gesture, never caught the longing she tried with every tendon to hide from him. You had to hide love. If you didn't, you opened yourself up to terrible humiliation. Caitlin doesn't know how she knows this, but she does.

  A small light blooms, and Seena says admiringly, “Where the fuck did you get that?”

  “Stole it.” A flashlight, sending a single swaying beam as Josh swings it, like a pale yellow crayon stroke across the cramped world.

  They are jammed together in some sort of horizontal service shaft made of plastic lattice. As the beam strikes her, Caitlin shrinks inside her blue cotton pajamas. Seena wears a red T-shirt and skimpy black panties, Josh a white tee and boxer shorts incongruously printed with golf clubs. Caitlin's glad when they crawl ahead of her. All she has to do is follow.

  To where?

  The other two don't know, couldn't ever have seen these plastic passages before, either. But evidently Josh, in the lead, has a good sense of direction because he crawls quickly, decisively. “Keep up!” Seena hisses over her shoulder, and Caitlin do
es her best.

  The passage ends in a wall of insulation and vertical beams, with another panel beneath them. Josh opens it, swings his mini-light around, and drops through with a thud that makes Caitlin gasp. But no one comes. Seena follows Josh. “Caitlin! Jump!”

  It's maybe eight feet down to what looks like the narrow landing of a staircase. She'll tumble down the stairs, break something, make an ass of herself....

  “I'll catch you!” Josh says, and Caitlin slides clumsily over the edge. His arms break her fall, hold her as she steadies. It seems to Caitlin that he holds her longer than necessary. A lance of ... something shoots through Caitlin's body, all the way from just behind her eyes to her knees, which turn watery. But Seena is already tugging her down the dark stairwell.

  Voices sound somewhere above. How many floors are there to the Institute? Which one have they been on?

  The second, apparently, because one floor down Josh's light shines on red lettering: EMERGENCY EXIT. ALARM WILL SOUND. “Not today, it won't,” Seena says and reaches for the door handle.

  “Wait!” Caitlin says. “It's winter out there!”

  Josh says, “It's winter?”

  “I asked Dr. Jensen. And this is Manhattan.” Winter in New York means cold and snow, and the three of them are wearing almost nothing.

  “Fuck that,” Seena says. “I'd rather freeze than—” The lights go back on.

  Immediately alarms begin to sound. Seena hurls herself at the door, which adds one more alarm to the clamor. They run through—and stop dead.

  “What...” Josh. He falls silent.

  They huddle outside a brick-and-steel building, facing a jungle. Enveloped in it, almost engulfed by it, even with the solid building behind them. Vines thick as a man's body twist from trees soaring above them, and from the vines shoot out smaller vines interlaced, thick with strange green leaves pulpy as soft fruit. The heat forms a second medium of its own, a dense humid pool thick as water, and the smell...

  Footsteps pound down the staircase beyond the open door behind them. “Come on!” Seena cries and plunges into a hole in the dense jungle. Caitlin hangs back until Josh grabs her hand, and then something that isn't reason or logic or even choice takes her, and she lets him push her after Seena, crawling as if her life depends on it, and the thought comes to her, finally, that maybe it does.