Ren The Complete Boxed Set

by Sarah Noffke

  Because Los Angeles sucks in every way imaginable, I actually sat in two hours of traffic getting here from the closest GAD-C. What’s the fucking point in being a Dream Traveler in the busiest city in the country?

  “Adelaide is failing to progress,” the midwife says, and I catch the hint of real fear in her eyes.

  “What the fuck does that mean? Adelaide is failing labor? How does one possibly do that?”

  Her shit brown eyes narrow with confusion at my remark. “Sir, labor is complicated. And Adelaide’s blood pressure has dropped, she’s weak, possibly too weak to push and—”

  Running footsteps slapping against the linoleum interrupt her sentence. “Betty! Betty!” a woman calls. She’s young. A newbie nurse, I’m guessing. “We have a diagnosis. Dr. Rollins just received the blood test results.” The girl with the high ponytail stops. She doesn’t look at me but rather at the midwife. “She has amniotic fluid embolism,” the young nurse says to the midwife.

  And immediately the midwife’s expression unleashes a fear response in me. Her eyes widen. Mouth pops open. A small sound falls out of it.

  Betty turns to me. “That means—”

  “Adelaide could die,” I say through my constricted throat. It feels as though a chain has been wrapped around my neck. I know things. Things from decades of working for the Institute. A lifetime of reading. And I know that amniotic fluid embolism is a rare condition. And I also know that it has a high mortality rate.

  “They’re going to have to do an emergency C-section,” the midwife says, trying to explain from her place of knowing.

  “Do it,” I almost yell, throwing my arm in the direction of the hallway where Adelaide’s room is.

  “But sir, just so you know, to save your daughter…” She hesitates. “There’s many complications involved…And…” The midwife can’t finish her sentences, and it’s infuriating.

  I pinch my eyes together, directing all my anger at the woman who is speaking too slow.

  Finally she says, “The baby may not survive. In these cases, there’s many risks for both mother and baby. You need to know that.”

  “I don’t care if the monster survives. Just get it out of my daughter and do what you have to to save her life,” I say, and now I do yell.

  She nods, and I hate the look in her eyes. It too clearly says what she didn’t. Adelaide is in serious danger. Surviving this is one thing. Not having brain damage or a host of other possibilities is another.

  The woman and the nurse turn and run off, all their actions urgent.

  I spin around to the wall, my eyes on the ceiling. “Don’t you fucking take her,” I say aloud. “And God, don’t make her a vegetable and leave me with her bloody monster to raise.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Waiting is something losers do. They idly sit by and just wait for news. For results. For things outside their control to happen. I’ve never considered myself a waiter. I live my life. Do things. Make things happen while other things happen. I’ve never sat around unable to do something because I’m waiting. And yet here I am, in an ordinary hospital waiting room surrounded by losers who are dripping with concern. Their lives are stuck in mid-pendulum swing because of someone else. Because someone else’s life is being decided in a frigid operating room. Their life span, quality of life, and the weight they’ll potentially put on the people in this room by being a burden or not at all is all being determined. And it’s being determined by the hands of surgeons and doctors who maybe graduated at the top of their class, but most likely did not. Half of doctors graduate in under the bottom fifty percentile and yet they’re granted positions where they rule over people’s lives.

  One of those doctors could be operating on Adelaide now. They’ll be cutting her open and ripping a monster out of her. And even then her fate won’t be decided. The amniotic fluid could be in her lungs, overtaking them, depriving her brain of oxygen. There are things the doctors can do and things outside their control. I know that. The phony balance in the world isn’t governed by the people in this place, a hospital meant to save. It’s always been controlled by a God who has a fucked up sense of right and wrong. I say this because I truly believe, at this stage in my life, that God put me on this Earth as a monster. That wasn’t enough for God though. He had to tear people from my life one by one so that I put up a wall around myself, too afraid to care about people, too afraid they’d die. Not all the people in my life have been plucked from the Earth by God’s hands, but enough that I got the bloody point. Most who the monster cares about will meet an early end. God obviously cursed me. And I have a feeling he’s doing it again with Adelaide because of his fucking vendetta against me.

  I’ve never believed that because God deems something right, it is. That’s a fucking ambiguous method of living one’s life. God gives and takes and doesn’t care if things are right or wrong. That’s not the fucking point of his game. People think he’s supremely good. That he wants the best for us. That there’s a bloody purpose to this all. There’s not. God isn’t trying to help us. I’m not saying he isn’t there. That’s fucking ridiculous. He’s there, all right. He’s watching. He’s allowing the tragedies. Enjoying them maybe. I believe, and it’s taken me forty-five years to decide this, that God is only a bigger fucked up version of us trying to experience himself through us. He isn’t trying to save our souls or help us grow. He eats up our failures. That is an experience. He wants to experience our losses, our joys, our addictions, our seemingly unending pain. That masochist is all about experiences. That is all. Pray for help but he only eats your words. Commit yourself to him, but he only feels the devotion. His job is not to intervene or love us or guide us through this bloody hell hole. He’s not the director, he’s the guy in the audience and we are his actors and all he wants is a fucking show.

  “Mr. Lewis?” I hear from the far side of the room.

  I flip my head up and instantly a strain in my neck announces itself. I’ve been sitting for over an hour, my elbows on my knees, head hanging low. I’ve been waiting. Waiting to hear my name be called, like a fucking loser would. My back also mentions its problems with my long sitting position when I stand.

  A doctor in light blue scrubs stands by the nearest wall, holding a clipboard. He’s tall and bald, and the look in his small eyes gives nothing away. He turns and begins walking with me as I approach.

  “I’m Dr. Mizin, the doctor who performed Adelaide’s surgery,” he says. He’s Russian judging by his accent. Thank fucking god. Russians never graduate in the bottom half of their class. That may be a stereotype, and in my profession stereotypes are akin to law. Typecasting and generalizations use statistics to help me make snap decisions.

  “Your daughter is stable now,” he begins, his tone cold. “She’s in the intensive care unit. And the infant is in Neonatal. Adelaide’s heart rate was accelerated for quite a long time. Her blood pressure plummeted during surg—”

  “Get to the bloody point. I don’t need these details,” I say.

  “She awoke from surgery,” he says, sighing heavily.

  “So she’s not stuck in a coma,” I say, realizing that’s the reason for his relief. That was a very real possibility.

  “No, she’s not. But it’s too soon to see if there’s any damage due to the oxygen deprivation or any other long-term effects of the fluid leakage. So now all we can do is wait,” he says with a taciturnity in his voice that I actually appreciate. Russians are fucking amazing specimens. They make the best agents because of their ability to cut off emotions and see the clear contrast between duty and real people. And they have zero sense of humor and are easily put off by my jokes. Hell, usually all I have to do is smile at a Russian to make them mad. They really are my favorite people.

  “The infant,” Dr. Mizin continues. “He’s small, as would be expected due to his premature arrival. Currently we have him on oxygen since his lungs are not yet deve—”

  “Yeah, I don’t care,” I say, waving my hand at the man.
<
br />   The doctor’s expression doesn’t change. He nods though and points to a door. “You may see your daughter if you wish,” he says and then he turns and stalks off.

  ***

  People say they hate hospitals. I get it. It’s where people go when they’ve had an emergency. It is where death happens and sickness rots people’s bones. But these same imbeciles forget hospitals are also where people are saved. It’s where people go because it’s a place that offers solutions and hope. I loathe the way people think. It is always flawed.

  My eyes don’t adjust right away when I enter the room. Clinical smells wrestle inside my nose seeking to pull a sneeze out of me. I suck back the urge, overpowering it with my sheer will. I keep my gaze down low until I’ve conquered the dark and the odors. When I bring my eyes up Adelaide is staring at me, an all wrong expression on her face. She looks in pain, but not physically. From the way her mouth is pulled to the side and her eyes seem to shake with a new weight, she’s on the verge of tears. She’s been through an ordeal and it’s written on her face. Adelaide is scared and overwhelmed and I see it too clearly in her expression.

  “Do you need me to grab someone for you?” I say, wanting to believe she’s in pain due to the surgery and not the trauma.

  She shakes her head roughly against the pillow. Seeing Adelaide in a bed like this is strange. And since she holds so much resemblance to my mum, this moment brings an old memory rushing to the surface. The time I spent with my mum before she died she was in a bed much like this. She was laid out like this, a heavy weight to her body. But my mum, who was the strongest person I ever knew, she didn’t look on the verge of breaking when she was in her deathbed. Adelaide appears as if anything can throw her over the edge right now and that’s more than a concern for me. I can’t watch her break. I won’t be a witness to it.

  When I visited my mum before she died I left so many things unsaid. I didn’t open my heart as I wanted to. I didn’t share details about how I felt for her or how much she meant to me. I didn’t show an ounce of appreciation for the sacrifices she made for me. I kissed my mum’s forehead, told her I loved her, and let her die. I was then and am now a coward. I have never been anything else. People think I’m calloused, but the truth is I’m scared of emotions. Feeling them, showing them, and then being entirely stripped of them. I’m a strategic man who can’t stand emotions, both their presence and their absence.

  Adelaide sucks in a sharp breath and the pain in her eyes retreats.

  “How are you?” I ask, because it’s all I know to say, stuck by my place next to the door.

  “I haven’t seen him yet,” she says, her voice trembling. And I know who the “him” is and why she can’t refer to him directly. Everything is too hard for her right now. Even saying words feels like too much.

  “There’s time for that,” I say, and I almost sound soft. Sensitive.

  She nods again, pressing her lips together. Her long hair lies in loose ringlets beside her face. “I almost lost him. They say—”

  “You didn’t though,” I say, cutting her off. I study Adelaide now, the way she regards me. Her nonverbal cues. Analyze her speech. Try and decide if any of it points to brain damage. So far she only appears like a girl on the verge of a breakdown, which means we will keep this brief.

  “While in labor I asked for you,” she says.

  “I came as soon as I could,” I say.

  She shrugs and her eyes fill with tears, but she keeps them at bay. Thank fucking God. “Yeah, I know. I was just hoping that you’d… I mean, it would have been nice if you… Anyway, I was just all alone and scared.”

  “Yes, I realize that. But that ordeal is over with now,” I say, and I hate how cold my voice sounds and yet I’m unwilling to change it. Again I’m going to walk away without saying words people deserve to hear. I’m going to walk away without offering compassion when a person needs it. Adelaide is my mum in too many ways. She’s my second chance for redemption, the one my mum spoke about on her death bed. And yet I can’t bring myself to take this second chance.

  “You should get some rest,” I say finally.

  “Yes, but…” She tries and fails to push up a little. “Will you stay with me? I don’t want to be alone.”

  I stare at her, an IV attached to her hand. Machines beside her bed. Her face pale. Eyes weighted. Lips trembling. She doesn’t look like I’ve ever seen her and yet she looks exactly as I’ve always seen her in my mind, a girl alone in the world. Afraid. Yet cold. Tortured and unwilling to deal with it.

  “You’ll rest better without disturbances,” I say. “I won’t be far though.” And I just catch the heartbreak in her eyes as I turn for the door. I whip it open and bolt out as the sounds of her sobs fill the room.

  I march away from her room. Away from her sobs. Away from her, although she needs me. I can’t be what she needs. I will fail time and again to meet Adelaide’s expectations. That’s why I leave the hospital, abandoning her when I said I would stay. She will resent me for it when she asks for me and I don’t return. She will fester with frustration that I wasn’t there for her in her greatest time of need. And hopefully she’ll hate me and stop expecting what I can’t give her. So I leave and don’t look back.

  ***

  Some people believe that God is dead. The reason these morons think that is because it’s easier to digest than the truth. God is alive and he doesn’t fucking care about us, the humans he created and allows to suffer.

  Chapter Twelve

  “That’s the Smart Pod?” I say, pointing at the black plastic cone sitting on Aiden’s work station. It’s less than a foot high. “Where does it open up and shoot bullets at its owner?”

  Aiden turns from the table and flashes me a dumb grin. “I’ve actually taken the device apart and surprisingly there’s no bombs or anything lethal in it,” he says with a sniveling little laugh.

  I eye the lanky scientist, really studying him. I’m still alert for any indications that he’s deceiving me and is actually the mole. He checked out when I questioned him, but I’m still keeping my eye on everything. Vivian might try and recruit more moles now that her plan is in motion. And Aiden would be in the best position to thwart my plans. I’m relying on him to disable the Smart Pods. And hopefully Vivian doesn’t know that. It’s hard for me to determine what all this mole is feeding her. She knows about me and the news reporting department and I also believe she’s somehow disabled Roya’s clairvoyance. I’m not sure what else she has eyes on.

  “Okay, space chimp, why don’t you give me some good news,” I say.

  He shrugs, his fat lips pursed. “No good news yet. I studied the wiring and it’s an incredibly sophisticated design which unfortunately means any of my ideas for disabling these things remotely won’t work.”

  “God, you’re such a fuck up,” I say, shaking my head at the kid with a PhD in quantum physics.

  A half smile forms on his face. “Don’t worry. I’m confident I’ll find the hack, but it’s going to take time.”

  “Oh, fine. While you take your time, we will just wait around to see what destruction Vivian has in store for us,” I say, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

  “Yes, master,” the cone says at once, a stream of red lights glowing around the base. I straighten at the sound of Vivian’s voice, which I hadn’t forgotten is soft like water flowing, calming as silence and high like a violin. An elegantly beautiful voice. It’s more perfect than Dahlia’s and yet I never thought that was possible.

  “Sleep, Vivian,” Aiden says to the device, and the red light disappears. “The Smart Pod has incredible hearing and responds to voice commands from an impressive distance away.”

  I eye the cone again, wanting to activate the voice but unwilling to do it in front of the daft scientist.

  “Do you have a soundproof vault of some kind?” I ask.

  Aiden raises one of his black bushy eyebrows at me. “Of course I do.”

  “Well, when you’re not working on dis
covering the hack then you need to have this succubus machine in that vault,” I say, pointing at the seemingly unassuming device.

  “Oh right. Mind control. Good call. I hadn’t thought of that,” he says.

  “I’m not surprised,” I say, turning to leave.

  I spin around to find Trey standing in the doorway; beside him stands the tallest woman in the Institute. Shuman is the Head Mentalist and also in charge of the news reporting department. I’ve known her for the entire time I’ve worked at the Institute and never once have I seen her smile. I respect that she finds the gesture wasteful and usually insincere.

  “Hey, intervener,” I say to Trey, still bitter that he brought Adelaide to the Institute. “Have you found new ways to stick your nose in my business?”

  “I actually was stopping by to make your life easier,” he says.

  “Oh, good, you’re getting rid of your son,” I say. “Good call. Joseph really is the absolute worst. We’ve all voted and it was unanimous.”

  Trey shakes his head. “No, Ren. I had Shuman investigate her department for the mole. Everyone checked out.”

  I eye Shuman, who has her arms crossed in front of her chest, her rattlesnake tattoo visible on her wrist and hand where it’s wrapped around. Her face as usual is impassive.