by SD Tanner
Voice speaks: I do not know what I am. I was born here underground. Where are you?
Ip speaks: I am above the blue and below the sky. Show me your home. Let your thoughts fly.
Voice speaks: How do I show you what I see?
Ip speaks: You give me your mind and I will see free.
Voice speaks: I don’t know how to do as you say. But I want you to know so you may.
Ip speaks: I lived in a bunker just like yours. It was a prison and a curse. Why do you stay in this hell on earth?
Voice speaks: I’m afraid to leave. The world isn’t safe. Something bad happened to me in this place.
Ip speaks: The world above is dangerous true but the world below is a prison for you. Leave this place and give me your mind. I will find you for you are my kind. You and I were born again. And you are a brother that I have gained.
Voice speaks: I will leave this place as you ask. But how will you find me in a world gone dark?
Ip speaks: I am not alone my brother so sweet. I will bring others and we will meet. But we meet already in this part of the mind. That no others can see for we are of kind.
Voice speaks: I understand you are real and I am already less fearful. You are my sister so sweet. I will leave here so we can meet.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Related by birth (Gears)
He woke with a start and looked at his watch by the bed. It was 2.30am and he didn’t know what woke him up. Seeking Ip’s warm body, he reached under the covers, but the bed was empty. He wondered if she was in the bathroom, but he couldn’t hear her. Slowly he became of an aware of an odd noise that seemed to be a combination of light scratching and squeaking. He tried unblocking his ears, but the noise didn’t get any clearer or make any more sense. He tapped the light control panel on the bedhead, and in the dim shadowy light, he saw Ip was standing, facing the wall in front of him making small and rapid movements.
Calling to her softly, he asked, ‘What are ya doin’, honey?’
She didn’t seem to hear him. He tapped the light control panel on the bedhead again and the main light flickered on. The room suddenly flooded with brilliant white light. Ip was standing naked and using whiteboard markers to draw a mural that covered a third of their bedroom wall. Climbing out of bed, he stood behind her studying the mural.
Putting his arm around her waist, he said gently, ‘Ip, honey, what are ya doin’?’
She didn’t acknowledge him, but continued to intently draw colors onto the wall, only stopping to pick up a different colored marker and then continue her frantic drawing. Stepping back from the wall, he tried to make sense of what she was drawing and saw it was a collection of images. A young boy, a building, a bridge, a hunter, hospital cuffs, an angry face, a frightened one and, in the middle of the drawing, was a large mirror image of her own blue eyes. This was his first insight into Ip’s mind and he suddenly felt confused and alarmed. Unable to get her attention or stop her frantic drawing, he wasn’t sure what to do next.
Deciding he needed help, he hoped Pax was in for the night and went to his room and shouted, ‘Pax! Wake up!’
Buried under a duvet, Pax stirred and said blurrily, ‘Whatdaya want?’
‘It’s Ip. She’s doin’ somethin’ I don’t understand,’ he said worriedly.
Pax switched on his light and muttered, ‘You’re doin’ somethin’ I doan understand, bro. Where are your goddamn pants?’
Feeling anxious, he said sharply, ‘Ya need to see this!’
Pax rolled out of bed, scratched his stomach, yawned and followed him out of the room. When he walked in the room, he looked at Ip and then at the mural and drawled, ‘Ip’s an artist. Who knew?’
He didn’t think this was something to make light of and he said angrily, ‘Pax, this isn’t funny. I dunno what the hell is going on with her. She’s not responding to me at all and she won’t stop drawing.’
Ip thinks: My humans cannot hear my mind. It is a limit of their kind. I need to show them where I seek for my sweet brother does it keep.
Sitting down heavily on the end of the bed, Pax studied the mural. While he looked at each individual picture in the mural, he casually observed, ‘Ip has a really nice ass.’
Rolling his eyes at his brother, he said dourly, ‘You’ve seen her ass before. She’s never been modest.’
Pax nodded sagely and replied, ‘True story, but her ass is always worth a special mention.’
Watching his brothers even-tempered reaction to her behavior was calming his own and he said, ‘Are ya gonna help me or be a jackass. ‘Cos if ya gonna be a jackass, go back to bed.’
Screwing up his face, Pax sniffed derisively and said, ‘I dunno know why she’s drawin’, but I know what that is.’ Pointing to the drawing of the bridge, he added, ‘It’s the Huey P. Long Bridge in Baton Rouge. I’ve driven over it.’
‘Who do ya think the boy is?’ he asked.
Pax gave him a baleful look and said, ‘Like ya always tell me. Ya know what I know, dumbass.’
Realizing Ip was drawing things that existed, he started to break the pictures down and said, ‘Blue eyes like hers. Hospital handcuffs like they used on her in the CDC. A building like the CDC. A hunter. They had those at the CDC, but it’s a different location and there’s a boy. A frightened or angry boy.’
‘We could just go there,’ Pax said steadily. ‘Maybe that’s what she wants us to do.’
‘Good idea,’ he replied. ‘Let’s go now.’
Pax screwed up his face in disgust and said, ‘Dude, put ya pants on first.’
As soon as he decided they would go, Ip immediately put down her pen, walked across the room and started putting her clothes on. When she was done, she smiled at him and waited patiently while he dressed.
Once he was ready to leave, he took her hand and said, ‘Way to get ya message across, honey.’
By the time they reached the bridge in Baton Rouge, it was 6am and dawn was breaking across the horizon. Hatch was flying low and slow over the areas around the bridge. They’d taken pictures of the mural on the tablet. He and Pax were looking out the crew windows for anything that looked like the building she’d drawn. It was a crude picture of a distinctive looking two-story building with something circular on the roof.
Pointing at the buildings below, Pax called, ‘There.’ Moving to the crew window Pax was sitting at, he saw a building with a dome structure in the middle on top of the flat roof.
‘Find somewhere to drop us down there,’ he told Hatch.
Hatch landed the bird on a lawn about 50 yards from the building. As they pulled open the door, Ip leapt out and disappeared into a cluster of dense trees between them and the building.
Pax shouted over the sound of the rotors, ‘Still can’t control ya puddy tat.’
‘Shaddup Pax,’ he shouted back at him.
Ip speaks: There you are my brother dear. I promised you we would be near.
Boy speaks: So you are real. And here you are. Just as you promised you were not far.
Reappearing from the cluster of dense trees, Ip was holding hands with a young boy who looked to be no more than 14 years old. The boy was skinny, deathly pale and his eyes were a brilliant blue like Ip’s, but he looked fragile and vulnerable.
Turning to him, Pax smiled and said, ‘Looks like Ip has family.’
He agreed. The boy looked wild, unkempt and disoriented, much like Ip had months ago. Obviously the building was another CDC site and this boy was one of their test subjects, but he’d no idea how Ip could have known he was here.
The boy watched them as they walked over and, once they were standing in front of them, he said, ‘Hello.’
‘Damn!’ Pax exclaimed. ‘This one can talk.’
‘Easy, Pax,’ he growled softly. ‘Don’t scare the kid.’
Smiling at the boy, he said in a low and relaxed voice, ‘I’m Gears. This is Pax. Who are ya?’
The boy blinked at him and his blue third eyelid slid across his blue eyes and back again, but he s
aid nothing.
Ip speaks: Do you know the noise they make?
Boy speaks: Just a little. My mind doesn’t work well of late. I think he seeks to know my name. I can’t tell him which is a shame.
Ip speaks: I understand what you say. My mind was lost another day. I live here now in this world of color and noise and where the others dwell.
Boy speaks: Show me the others of whom you speak. Are they the rulers that do seek?
Ip speaks: We will share our minds so very well, but for now we must leave this hell.
Ip and the young boy seemed to drift off into their own world and he wondered if they were communicating telepathically with one another. Realizing he had no idea what was going on, he needed to take the boy to Lydia. If the boy was able to say even the one word, it meant he had some ability to speak and they might be able to communicate with Ip. His need to be able to talk to Ip was becoming urgent. She was integral to their plans and his life, and he needed to know more about her.
Turning to Pax, he said, ‘We need to take ‘em to the lab.’
Pax nodded and, as they walked back to the bird, he asked, ‘How many more of these CDC places do ya think there were?’
Louise and Ian told TL there were a pool of test subjects across a number of CDCs, but they’d never known how many or where. Based on the mural Ip drew, it was probable the boy was living in a CDC and he wondered if the building with the dome on top was one. He decided their immediate priority was to get the boy and Ip to Lydia, but he’d ask TL to check the building and find out what it was. He wondered how many more people like Ip existed, and if they all shared her ability to kill hunters. He thought, maybe the super hunters weren’t just looking for Ip, but they wanted all of the people like her.
Once they were sitting on the bird, Pax commented casually, ‘Have ya noticed the world has gotten really weird?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied, equally as casually. ‘But it was always weird, Pax. It’s just weird in another way now.’
They radioed the ship and asked Gerry to have someone find Lydia to go to the CDC with them. They didn’t bother to disembark on the ship, but collected Lydia and headed out. Once at the CDC, Lydia and Louise ran the same tests on the boy they regularly ran on Ip and he allowed them to do what they needed to do.
When Lydia finished her tests, she sat down with them and said, ‘This boy has also been infected with the counter virus. He has the same right lobe development, only his is significantly smaller than Ip’s. He has damaged areas in his brain, but his damage looks less severe than Ip’s. Ip uses a lot more of her brain than we do, but his brain activity is closer to how ours works. His speech center is intact, but he hasn’t spoken to us. His eyes are the same as Ip’s and we can assume he also has excellent night vision. He’s underweight and physically underdeveloped, but based on his bone development, we estimate him to be about 15 years old.’
‘Can he kill hunters?’ Pax asked.
Lydia answered, ‘We would assume so, but we can’t be sure until we get the results of the virus samples.’
This was all very interesting, but he really wanted to know if he’d be able to talk to Ip through the boy and asked, ‘Can he communicate with Ip? Will he be able to talk to us?’
Lydia shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know, but given they have the same development of the right lobe of the brain, and it really is for telepathic communication, and he can talk, then I guess so. But, Gears that is a lot of ifs.’
Thinking Lydia was being pessimistic, he said, ‘We know they’re communicatin’, and I got a wall full of drawings to prove it. The only question is whether the boy can talk.’
‘I don’t know, Gears,’ Lydia answered honestly. ‘Just because his speech center is intact, doesn’t mean his mind works in a way that can easily use it or use it at all.’
‘But he spoke to us,’ he persisted.
‘He said one word, Gears,’ Lydia replied pragmatically. ‘That said, he did say something that made sense and was in context, so it’s promising he might be able to talk, even if it’s limited.’
Pax patted his shoulder and said, ‘That’s more than we had before, bro.’
Ip’s inability to speak in a way he could understand always frustrated him. She seemed to understand him perfectly, but his understanding of her was a lot of guesswork. For once, he’d like to know, without question, what she was thinking. The longer they were together, the closer he felt to her, the more important it was becoming that he knew how she felt about him.
Lydia stood up and said, ‘You should take them back to the ship. Give him a hot meal and a warm bed. I’ll keep you posted on the results from the tests.’
They radioed Hatch to pick them up and it was early evening by the time they made it back to the ship.
‘What are we gonna call this kid?’ he asked and immediately wished he hadn’t.
‘Ip two?’ Pax replied. Warming to the subject, he added, ‘Son of Ip? Number two? Mini Ip?’
‘Shaddup Pax,’ he muttered, rolling his eyes. ‘And go get Mini Ip somethin’ hot from the kitchen.’
He, Ip and the boy sat down at the table and he said to the boy, ‘Can ya talk?’
The boy regarded him solemnly and said nothing. Sighing, he thought, he’s just like Ip. He was about to get up and grab some coffee when he heard the boy say, ‘Isaac.’
Feeling a surge of excitement, he smiled at the boy and asked, ‘Is that ya name? Isaac?’
The boy smiled back at him and said, ‘Isaac.’
Slowly and distinctly, he said, ‘Hello, Isaac. My name is Gears.’
That seemed to make the boy even happier and he beamed and said, ‘Ears.’
His smile widened and he replied, ‘Yes. My name is Ears.’
Pointing to Ip, who was sitting next to Isaac, he asked, ‘Can ya talk to her?’
Isaac seemed to drift off and he wondered whether he was communicating with Ip. If he was, then talking to Ip through Isaac was going to take a lot of patience.
Isaac speaks: What does he want this man of yours?
Ip speaks: He wants to know if you can you see my soul.
Isaac speaks: I see you inside and outside too. Does he not see you too?
Ip speaks: Sad to say, but sad is true. These humans cannot see minds as we do.
Isaac speaks: A lonely mind that lives alone.
Ip speaks: These human live alone inside. I have tried to show them, but it is too hard. Help my man understand that I am here and I am never far. For I live with him in body and heart.
Isaac speaks: I will do my best to share your mind. But they make words I cannot find.
Ip speaks: Speak as they do however you can. I would wish my man to understand.
After a few minutes, Isaac’s attention returned to him and while he watched, Isaac struggled to form words. With a few false starts, Isaac said haltingly, ‘Her mind lives with yours. She knows you true. She is here for only you.’
He realized Isaac was talking to Ip and she’d told Isaac how she felt about him. Her message was simple and clear. She knew him, she understood him and she loved him. Feeling a deep worry drift away, he gently stroked Ip’s cheek and said, ‘I love you too, honey.’
While he stroked her face, Pax returned to the room, set down a bowl of soup and bread for Isaac and asked, ‘What’d I miss?’
As Isaac ate, he explained, ‘His name is Isaac. My name is Ears. He can talk to Ip and Ip loves me.’
Snorting, Pax said, ‘So, we’re callin’ ya Ears now?’
‘Shaddup Joseph,’ he said, calling Pax by his real name to annoy him. He continued in a mild tone, ‘I tell ya the kid can talk to Ip, but ya think callin’ me Ears is the bit to focus on.’
Pax gave him a dirty look and was about to say something smart, when he cut him off and said, ‘Leave it, Pax, we need to talk to Ip.’
Turning to Isaac he asked slowly and distinctly, ‘Can Ip talk to the super hunters?’
Isaac again seemed to be processing his
words and after about 30 seconds, he said, ‘Rulers. Yes.’
He and Pax looked at one another and Pax asked, ‘Rulers?’
Shrugging, he replied, ‘Maybe that’s what she calls the super hunters.’
He asked Isaac, ‘How does Ip talk to the super hunters?’
Isaac paused for longer this time and eventually said, ‘In her mind. She sees all minds. Minds look like pictures.’
He didn’t really understand, but he thought about the mural Ip drew on their wall. It was a collection of pictures, but they weren’t her memories. They must have been Isaac’s memories. He wondered, is that what Ip can do? Can she look into other people’s minds and see what they’re seeing including their memories. He wondered if seeing into people’s minds was like picking a book on a bookshelf and looking at pictures on a page.
He asked Isaac, ‘Can Ip see my past?’
‘Ya betta hope not,’ Pax quipped.
Ignoring Pax, Isaac paused as he processed his question and he finally answered by pointing at him and said, ‘You speak words. She does not see words.’ Isaac pointed at his head and said, ‘Pictures. Feelings. Not words.’
Turning to him, Pax asked, ‘Is he sayin’ Ip can see pictures and feelin’s in our heads? ‘Cos there’s a lotta weird shit in my head.’
Snorting, he replied sharply, ‘There’s nothin’ in ya head, Pax.’
We don’t think in words, he thought. Inside our heads, we have images and feelings that we give words to explain ourselves to others. He guessed that Ip could see or maybe sense those images and feelings. Wondering if she could see or sense his feelings and thoughts at that moment, he looked at Ip as if to ask her. Looking back at him, she smiled and he thought, yes she can and she always has. Ip lived in a very different world and she’d understood him and his brothers from the get go. He realized she probably knew them better than they knew themselves and one another. It explained why she trusted them so readily.
He asked Isaac, ‘Can she see the super hunters in her head?’
Isaac paused and replied simply, ‘Yes.’
He asked, ‘Can she see inside their minds?’
Isaac paused and again replied simply, ‘Yes.’