“Look at me!” she heard Deron yell. He was standing over the exhausted Russo, pipe in hand. A pulse of white shot out from his feet in a tangle of ribbons before fading away.
Poor Russo—he couldn’t even lift his head.
Rosalia didn’t know where to look. The newcomers were approaching, heading for the suddenly restless Agent Ruiz, but Deron had the pipe raised in the air, threatening to strike at any moment.
“LOOK AT ME!” screamed Deron, his voice breaking on the last word.
A flash of lightning illuminated the field and when it faded, it took the rest of Easton along with it. The grass lost color, along with the bleachers and the school and downtown beyond. The agents that had been so confident the moment before stopped in their tracks. All around them, the veneer crumbled, broke free of the surfaces it was supposed to enhance, falling to the ground like bits of paint, until they absorbed enough water and became transparent, then invisible.
Silence. Except for the rain. Except for the thunder.
This is how Deron sees the world, Rosalia told herself. This is what drove him away. For a fleeting moment, she understood why he had gone. They both had the same choice to make: accept a world without color, an empty, cold facsimile of reality, or break free for a place that still had some vibrancy. And while he had let her decide, chance had decided for him. Russo had decided for him. But now everyone in the city could share his handicap. The towers of downtown were dark, a shapeless gray lit only by the storm.
One boy had seen the truth and run away.
How would the whole city react now?
“That’s enough, Memo!” barked one of the agents.
The voice drew Rosalia’s attention back to the field, just in time to hear the gunshot ring out, just in time to see Deron’s body flailing about unnaturally. He was spinning in the air, his screams not reaching her until he was halfway to the ground.
“Oh, fuck me!” said Sebo, scrambling to his feet. “Come on, we’ve gotta go!”
Rosalia sat there, dazed. There was no denying what had happened, not with the extended arm of Agent Ruiz pointing to where Deron had once stood, not with the gun’s barrel still glowing.
“Der—” she tried to say, but all the air had gone. When Sebo began pulling her away, she protested by latching onto the bleachers. “He shot...” The words barely trickled out.
“And they’ll do the same to us just for seeing it.” He grabbed her face to get her attention. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
Rosalia slapped him as hard as she could with her open palm. Turning to run, she felt his arms grip her waist and then a feeling of weightlessness. Sebo stumbled under the added weight, but the football field receded nonetheless. She called out to Deron, her cries muffled by the wind.
The four agents approached midfield, came to stand near the fallen Deron and fatigued Russo. Agent Ruiz raised his gun in one slow and agonizing movement.
As Rosalia screamed her protest, beating her hands against Sebo’s back, a rolling thunder boomed over Easton, drowning out the gunshot, drowning out the end to the boy she had known and loved.
The moon burst through the clouds and crashed into the Earth, erasing the possibility of reconciling with Deron.
There would be no reunion.
There wouldn’t even be a goodbye.
PART SEVEN
The petite fist came flying out of the darkness, but Ilya was able to get a hand up and deflect it, sending Rosalia stumbling to her left. She regained her balance and reached out with razorblade fingernails, trying to rip the flesh from Ilya’s bones. The only option was to retreat while the blood-tipped claws flailed about in front of her. Ilya took a deep breath and waited for Rosalia to press forward again.
Synapses that had been well-trained but seldom used sprung into action, directing her defensive parries in a delicate ballet that spread Rosalia’s arms wide and opened her torso for attack. She brought a knee up and it landed with a dull thud between Rosalia’s legs. The shock gave Ilya enough time to twist her body and catch her assailant on the chin with a right elbow cross. Blood splattered into the air and hung there for an eternity, Rosalia’s cries echoing all the while.
Ilya opened her eyes to find moonlight filling her bedroom. In the shadows it created, she saw Rosalia’s face, saw the anger and fire she remembered so clearly.
It was called a rage fantasy. They were considered a type of therapy at Dahlstrom Academy.
In all, there were seven psychiatric counselors at Easton’s most prestigious and secretive school; Ilya went through three of them before being paired with a woman who gave her name only as Roberta. She had a refined veneer that exuded confidence, and unlike others in her field, she didn’t take any of Ilya’s bullshit. Roberta was brutally honest at times but could also be empathic. She taught Ilya not to deny her inner fury, but rather to channel it in another way, one suitable for the civilized world. Between those weekly sessions and Practical Applications of Eastern Philosophy, Ilya wasn’t sure what she hated most about sixth grade.
Dahlstrom had taught her so much, but it was only useful as a student. As a normal person, the rage fantasy technique led nowhere, only served to fuel an anger that would just find some other way to come out. It didn’t take long after getting kicked out to realize how different the worlds were, how the children of the academy were being trained for something else entirely.
Ilya sighed and winced.
Rosalia had broken her nose and shattered it so completely that the doctors were forced to put her under while they reconstructed it. Ilya awoke to the same face, the same flawless veneer hiding her true identity, but she could feel the change underneath. It was the throbbing that gave it away. Where she saw clear skin in the reflective portal, there were really bruises. Where the light bent awkwardly, there were scars, gashes from fingernails that had drawn blood. It had taken time to adjust her veneer and had it not been for the lingering pain, she might have considered going to school. No one would have known how bad the damage was, not unless they got in close and listened to her breathing.
She told her grandmother that she deserved a day off and got no argument. What she really wanted was time to think. To plot.
It wasn’t the first night she had medicated herself into sleepy submission, but this time there were a couple of Oxycodones chasing half of a Mellow tab. The combination gave her strange dreams that alternated between past transgressions and future retributions—mostly drug-fueled rage fantasies. Rosalia was there, sometimes playing the victim, sometimes the aggressor. She went from swinging her fists to cowering nude in the corner of the shower in the blink of an eye. The alternating fear and contempt roused Ilya from her sleep throughout the night. Between the dreams and the pain, there was little rest to be had. Sometime in the early morning, the pills wore off and Ilya got up in the dark to find more.
Babushka had left the bottles on the dresser along with a glass of water. It was warm, but the pills went down just the same. On the second dose, Ilya grazed her nose with her hand and it felt like someone had pressed a mask of hot pins into her face. She recoiled and tried to crinkle her nose, but that only brought more agony.
A sort of laugh escaped her lips.
Somewhere on her desk was half a tab of Mellow just waiting to be placed under her tongue. Ilya crossed the room, confident no one could see her walking around in her underwear through the open window. Though the desk was bathed in soft light, she could not find the tab amongst the clutter. More illumination would help, so she placed her hand on the wooden surface. In her mind, she thought about a thin veneer of Birch wrapped around a glowing orb with just enough yellow light bleeding through to bring out the grain in the wood. Then, like a song changing key, the orb broke apart, spread across a single plane. Through it rose a desk just like the one in her room. It took only a second to visualize the desk with its new color, but it would take the veneer even less to translate the command.
Ilya waited. Nothing happened.
&
nbsp; She took a step back and then reached for the wall. The alternating stripes of white and red she imagined failed to materialize. It was then that she realized all the little touches were gone from the room. The soft glow of the baseboards for navigating the house at night, the dim amber of the analog clock on the wall by her bed, and the blue ambiance of the bathroom: all gone. Ilya looked from one surface to the other, searching out any sign of life. When her gaze fell on the window, she hurried towards it and scanned the outside world.
Everything was dark, even the porch lights on the houses across the street. No path guides glowed on the sidewalks. It was just the moon and the stars and a spark of red at the end of the street.
Ilya did a double take and pressed her cheek against the glass. She could barely make them out, twin lines of red fireflies stretching into the distance. It was the only color in the world.
Her robe was draped over the footboard and she pulled it on as she headed down the stairs. It looked different now, no longer the mix of emerald and topaz, but rather a dull white, almost gray. Not that she could see it well; the living room and foyer were both pitch black. Ilya navigated the room slowly until she was standing at the front door. Opening it allowed a breeze into the foyer, reminding her to tie the sash at her waist.
Though the rain had passed, the ground was still wet and puddles dotted the street. Gusts of wind tore at Ilya’s robe, exposing her legs to the cold. She held the ends down as she walked, winding around the deeper wells, her feet becoming wet and numb within seconds. At the sidewalk, she turned right and headed towards the light. As she got closer, she noticed shadows moving down the street. Two of them walked in unison, pausing at the same time while a red flash exploded in front of them. Ilya could hear the sizzling from a distance.
“Excuse me, Miss,” said a voice from her right.
Ilya jumped at the sound. She hadn’t even seen the large man approach.
He was dressed like a uniform, but his clothes were gray and lacked the designatory stripe. From what she could see of his face, he was a younger guy with a crooked smile and some kind of rash on his cheeks. The image was intriguing and repulsive at the same time.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Something slipped from his sleeve, a short tube that glowed neon green. He held it up to her face.
Ilya raised her hand, but not before noticing his eyes go wide. “I’m fine,” she replied, squinting against the light.
“I need you to return to your home. There is a dusk ‘til dawn curfew in effect.”
“What time is it now?”
He reflexively glanced at his wrist. “I don’t know. I’m just here to keep the streets clear.”
“And them?” Ilya gestured to the line of flares. “What are they doing?”
“Marking the road for emergency services.”
Ilya shook her head. “But why are they doing that?” She felt emotion spill onto her face and tried to cover it up with a veneer.
The uniform cocked his head to the side and studied her face. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?” She pushed past him and walked as quickly as her bare feet would carry her.
“Miss!” Footsteps sounded behind her, closing fast. “You need to return to your home.”
Ilya yelled over her shoulder, “Why?”
“For your safety!”
She stopped, turned, and put her hands on her hips. “Safety from what? From who?”
The uniform squirmed; he wasn’t used to being disobeyed. Maybe it was Ilya’s appearance that gave him so much trouble. He could hardly resist staring at her, couldn’t keep his eyes from scouting the curves of her breasts under the thin robe. Had she the energy, she would have used his lecherous nature to get her own way. As it stood, the Oxycodone had a hold of her system now, giving the world a dreamlike quality.
She remembered the bandages and cringed. The uniform wasn’t ogling her; he was captivated by the assortment of cuts and bruises on her face. Except the only way he could have seen them was if Ilya chose to allow it. As far as she knew, she had spent more than an hour the night before reconciling the evidence away. Either the uniform possessed some kind of magic that allowed him to see under the veneer or...
Gravity doubled, then tripled, and Ilya felt herself falling. The uniform grabbed her before she hit the ground.
“Careful,” he said, pulling her arm around his shoulder. He tried to stand her up, but the height difference was too much. With a grunt, he leaned her back and slipped his other arm under her leg.
Ilya took her first breath in what felt like minutes and found herself being carried back to her house. The stars were twinkling and multiplying in the sky, occasionally disappearing behind a fast-moving cloud. Out of the individual points formed larger patterns, even belts. There was so much detail and on such a large canvas.
“Which house is yours?”
She turned her head to the sound and saw the uniform’s face again. He was smiling. Ilya resisted the urge to smile back.
“Miss?”
“Two down,” she slurred. It was the kind of side effect she’d expect from Mellow, but not from just one dose of Oxy. Or had she taken two? Two down.
“You don’t have to be scared. I’ve got you.”
Ilya frowned. Her veneer should have been blank.
“Aw, don’t be sad either.”
“How are you doing that?”
The uniform returned his attention to the sidewalk. “I’m not doing anything. You’re the one making faces.”
“But how can you see my face? My veneer...”
He sighed. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. There’s going to be an official announcement in the morning.”
Ilya felt the world dissolving around her. Stay awake, she told herself.
“Something happened to the veneer last night,” he said, whispering.
Her heart stopped as they climbed the front steps. “What?”
The uniform nodded to the door. “I’d like to speak to your parents. Can you knock for me?”
“Just press the doorbell.”
“There is no doorbell.”
“Yes there is,” she replied, trying to lift her arm to point to the portal beside the...
“No, you don’t understand. There’s no doorbell... there’s no veneer at all.”
65 - Rosalia
Rosalia stood on the corner at the end of her street for fifteen minutes before she realized that the trams weren’t running. Dawn had just broken over Easton and the usually busy street was empty. Friday mornings meant commuters heading to work and kids in the neighborhood heading to school, but neither graced the sidewalks or the benches at the tram stop. Instead, it was quiet, with nothing in the streets except spent flares and glow sticks that looked inert in the glare of the sun.
Everyone was still in shock.
She nodded to herself. It explained why people were hiding in their homes, unable to come to terms with the absence of the veneer. Rosalia was not immune to the uneasy adjustment; had Deron not prepared her for what it would be like, she might have run screaming into her closet and never come out. But then what was the loss of the veneer against a human life? Against Deron’s life? The context lessened the blow and allowed her to accept what she believed in her heart to be a temporary setback. If it all came down to chips and computers, then they would find a way to bring back the veneer. Just send a guy down to replace a fuse.
The image made her laugh, but it was cut short by Deron’s face merging with the overweight man in tight coveralls. It was that face alone that propelled her forward, made her feet move despite the distance involved. If she had to walk all the way downtown, then so be it. There had been enough time wasted screwing around. It was time to involve the police.
Sebo had tried to talk her out of it, but nothing he had said the night before made any sense. He stayed with her a long time, let her cry on his shoulder even as the color drained from the veneer. He left her with
a promise that if she waited until morning, he would be at her door at dawn so they could go to the police together.
Rosalia didn’t know why she had bothered believing him.
Still, his lack of commitment wouldn’t stop her, nor would the tram service’s inability to function without the veneer. So she walked and took solace in the smell of fresh rain, of dew-covered grass that refracted the sunlight in a million little sparkles. Deron had been right; there was so much to see in the world, if you knew where to look.
Crossing Marsh Street, Rosalia noticed a man walking down the sidewalk towards her. The way he moved suggested middle age, but his head swung from side to side like a child discovering a toy store for the first time. Though he smiled, his eyebrows pitched at the middle, as if he were going to cry. When he saw her, he froze for a moment before turning back the way he had come.
Another street down, she found a couple walking hand in hand and pointing to various plants and birds that had reemerged after the storm. They were dressed like the man, just like Rosalia, in gray clothes. They looked like they had both escaped from the same mental hospital.
Rosalia laughed, though she didn’t understand why she found it so amusing. Maybe it was the justice of it all. Agents had taken Deron away from her and he had broken their precious veneer in return. Now everyone would feel the same fear. She certainly had.
Her mind wandered as she turned the corner towards Gillock Pond. She replayed the night in his dad’s apartment, of her sneaking out of bed and out of Deron’s life. She shivered. Had it really happened? Or had it all been some terrible dream? Looking down at her hand, at the bruises dotting her knuckles, she knew it had all been real—real enough to scar beneath the veneer.
Voices carried on the wind, mixing in with the sound of insects. It sounded like a crowd and sure enough, Rosalia discovered several people gathered together in the micro-park.
She suppressed outrage at their presence. The intruders had trespassed on her special place, the only piece of Easton where she and Deron had ever felt together and alone. It was where they had shared their first kiss and first touch and...
Veneer Page 39