by Amira Rain
So, fast forward to me in a seedy den of criminals and counterfeiters, trying to pass myself off as a grown man who might actually have a chance of passing as a diplomat. But, because I was only seventeen, and didn’t look more than a year or two older than that, at best, I was sweating bullets about my appearance, just standing in front of the counterfeiters. And when one of them asked what name should be put on the phony passport, I just froze. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. And in my panic, I just blurted out the first name that came to mind.”
Now with my own arms only very loosely folded across my chest, I leaned forward almost imperceptibly. “And what was the name you blurted?”
Jackson paused for a long moment. “Mr. Archibald Shufflebottom-Hogwood.”
I burst out laughing, completely unable to help myself. “No.”
“Yes. In my mind, for the couple of seconds I was trying to think of a name, it struck me as very dignified. Very mature-sounding. A name like a diplomat might have. But then the second I said it out loud... well, I knew it wasn’t a name that would even remotely match my youthful looks. Or even a modern diplomat.
I realized it was a name maybe better suited to a diplomat from Great Britain hundreds of years ago. Didn’t matter, though. One of the counterfeiters was already scrawling the name on my new fake passport, having a hearty laugh, having already taken my money. I was stuck with the passport.”
“And what happened then?”
“Well, to make another long story short, and maybe needless to say, the passport was zero help in getting me out of the bad place I was in. And in fact, it was immediately suspected of being fraudulent, which just put me in even worse of a position than I was already in, and made the task of getting out of the bad place even more difficult.”
“So, how did you do it?”
“Well... I’ll just say I had to fight my way out, literally. Which was no easy feat for a seventeen-year-old kid, but... well, I did it with all the ferocity that a man named Archibald Shufflebottom-Hogwood could muster.”
I giggled briefly and then fell silent, smiling. Jackson was smiling, too, revealing straight, white teeth. For a long moment, we just looked at each other, and my heart seemed to do a little stutter-step.
“So, Vivian, now you have some ammo for your revenge, so, go ahead. Tease away.”
I smiled even harder, a little warmth in my cheeks joining the rapid beating of my heart. “Sorry, but I don’t think I can, Mr. Shufflebottom-Hogwood. Your name’s so bad it almost teases itself.”
Jackson shrugged, giving me a half-grin that made me feel as if I might melt right into the hospital bed. With his strong, square jaw, mesmerizing eyes, and thick, dark hair, he was devastatingly handsome, and even that description didn’t seem to do him full justice.
“But, in any case, Archibald, I think I can manage to forgive your teasing of my made-up name.”
Still grinning, he opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, a man in a black military uniform similar to Jackson’s suddenly came trotting into the room, making me nearly jump out of my skin. He whispered something to Jackson I couldn’t quite catch, no more than a few words, then he dashed back out of the room just as quickly as he’d come in.
Grimacing, Jackson was up and out of his seat in a flash. “So sorry. Something urgent has come up. I’ll be back to continue our visit as soon as I’m able, though that may not be today. So very sorry.”
And with that, he was off, striding out of the room, leaving me in a state of startled confusion. Though even in that state, I still couldn’t help but think about how he was just as handsome wearing an expression of stern seriousness and urgency as he was wearing an amused half-grin. Maybe even more so.
I also couldn’t help but think about how he moved like the commander he apparently was, which was to say with purpose and complete confidence. He moved in a way that made his probably six-foot-three or four frame seem even taller, even more imposing. All this was not exactly off-putting to me.
Not long after Jackson left, Irene came in and ushered me out of bed and over to the windows. “Trouble in the north today; some Gorgolians attacking one of our outposts, which isn’t good at all. But at least now you’ll be able to see Commander Wallace in action as he leads his men out of the city.”
Not a moment after Irene had finished speaking, I saw Jackson and his dragons. But really, the only one I saw was him. And Irene didn’t even have to tell me it was him; I just knew. He was the largest of a group of maybe about a hundred actual winged dragons speeding across a pale blue sky, high above even the tallest skyscrapers, their mighty wings beating the air. Jackson was also just a few body lengths ahead of everyone else. It was somewhat hard to see with complete clarity from a distance, but his body appeared to be the same deep, dark, almost blackish midnight blue as his eyes.
With the sense of surreality I’d been experiencing at different times now returning full force, I watched him lead his men away to the north until they disappeared.
Then, I turned to Irene, struggling to find my voice. “This is... this is all real, right? Whatever happened to me, however I got so cold, and however I got so far away from America and everything else I know about the world... this is still all real, right? Just, dragons and everything. I’m not in some sort of a really strange and extended dream?”
Smiling, Irene shook her head. “No. It may feel like it for a while, but it’s not a dream. Everything here is very real. And after a while, things probably won’t feel even remotely strange to you anymore.”
I hoped she was right.
I slept for most of the day. And the next. Jackson still wasn’t back. I realized that I was more than a little anxious to see him again for some reason. Little did I know that our next meeting wouldn’t be quite as pleasant as the previous one had been.
CHAPTER FOUR
My mild anxiousness to see Jackson again continued. Not that there was even much time for me to be a little anxious, though. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was eating, or trying to keep my eyes open long enough to take a shower.
On the evening of my fourth day in the hospital, Irene pulled up a chair bedside after I’d gotten into bed to go to sleep for the night. “So... not that you’ve been awake much to do very much thinking, but have you been able to recall any more details about your life?”
Sighing, I shook my head. “No, not really. Sometimes random words or images have been popping into my head, but just for a split second, and then they’re gone almost before I can even really ‘see’ them. It’s more as if they’re just fleeting micro-thoughts that I just can’t quite grab.”
It was true. They’d been driving me absolutely nuts.
After turning on my side in bed to face her, propping a triple stack of pillows beneath my cheek, I continued. “So, since today was another day of me not showing any signs of improvement about this, how about if you just tell me some details about myself like you did with my name.”
Now sighing herself, she shook her head, making her light gray bob swing. “I wish I could. I wish it were that easy. But I don’t know any more than you do, and neither does anyone else, not even Dr. Moore or Commander Jackson.
You see, a very long time ago, when you young women were... well, I’ll say, ‘assisted to rest,’ each of you had a file of papers giving specifics about your life. These files contained everything from date and place of birth, to childhood memories, to favorite foods, to everything in between. Detailed lists of interests, preferences, hobbies, accomplishments, personal relationship histories, you name it, it was in these files, both in an actual paper copy file, and then on a computer hard drive. That way, if any of you had amnesia that didn’t resolve itself a while after thawing, you could be told about yourself.
But all that info didn’t last for long. It was stored in a heavily-fortified building called The Dome not too far from here, but even a heavily-fortified building couldn’t withstand a particularly intense Gorgolian assault. All the files, both hard copy and digital, were
destroyed, along with The Dome, which could be rebuilt,and was. But as to the information files, well, of course, they were just gone. And after that, all that was left were the names of you young women inscribed on your tanks.”
I lifted my head off the stack of plush pillows, confused, which was clearly becoming my usual state of being “Tanks?”
She dismissed my question with a wave of one of her small, plump, pink-fingernailed hands. “Oh, I’m sure Commander Wallace will explain all that to you later.”
Something about the way she was suddenly avoiding eye contact with me made me think that she didn’t want to explain the thing about “tanks” herself, like maybe the explanation was something unpleasant or bizarre.
At any rate, she changed the subject quickly, asking me if I could recall even one or two of the words that had been popping into my head when I tried to think about myself and my life before coming to the hospital. “Even if you can remember just one, maybe we can try to ‘expand’ that word in a way and see where that leads us.”
Gazing over her shoulder to the windows and the darkened city sky, which was tinted sort of an indigo-peach shade from the city lights, I thought hard for several moments, cheek resting against the stack of pillows again. “When I try to think of ‘home,’ I feel like I keep thinking of cars for some reason. Just... cars and cars and cars. Old ones, new ones, making them, driving them... I can’t explain it. When I think of ‘home,’ I’m just thinking cars for some reason, even right now. Even this second, I’m having these funny little micro-flashes about cars, like, thoughts that I’m ‘seeing,’ but that are just too quick to fully grab and see closer.”
After a pause, I shifted my gaze from the night sky back to Irene, frustrated. “I know that doesn’t mean anything. Every town and city has cars. I guess the only thing I’ve determined is that I could be from anywhere.”
“Well, not necessarily. Maybe there was something about cars that was special to your town. Some kind of a connection with cars.”
“The Motor City. Where’s the Motor City?”
Those words, Motor City, had hit me like a lightning bolt.
I lifted my face from the stack of pillows so fast I caused a painful twinge in my neck. “Wherever that place is, that’s where I’m from. Cars... cars and manufacturing. Everyone is just so proud of all the cars, a lot of the city’s whole history is about cars. That’s the Motor City.”
With her perfectly-arched gray brows lifted in surprise, Irene responded right away. “Well, from what I remember from the old history books we read in school, I think the Motor City would have officially been a city called Detroit.”
Gasping, I immediately sat up, in disbelief about the rush of information seeming to explode in my brain. “Detroit. That’s my home. We didn’t always live in the city, though. I was born in the city, was an only child, and Dad was an attorney, and Mom worked for a nonprofit teaching kids about art. But then Dad passed away when I was really small, and we moved somewhere else. Somewhere... somewhere that was still Detroit, but it was like... I want to say the place was called West. West with... blooms. Flowers, maybe. A blooming field. I think that’s where we lived then.” “Hmm. So, maybe by a field filled with flowers? Though that doesn’t sound like what I read about Detroit in the history books at all.”
“No... no, I don’t think this was Detroit proper, just by Detroit, maybe. A suburb, I think. West Blooming Flowerfield, it was called. No...” I paused and thought for a few moments, something seeming to click into place in my mind. “West Bloomfield. That’s where I come from... where I spent the older years of my childhood. West Bloomfield, Michigan. It’s a suburb of Detroit. Then, after college, which I went to somewhere in Michigan, I moved back to Detroit proper, and I had a job in the city.”
Hands on knees, Irene was leaning forward in her chair, seeming just as excited as I was. “And what do you remember about that time?”
A few seconds ticked by, and I realized I remembered nothing from that time. Absolutely nothing. Not what my job had been, not anything about the neighborhood I’d lived in, not who any of my friends had been. Not if I’d had a boyfriend or not. I just couldn’t remember a single thing. Disappointed, I told Irene that, but she looked undaunted.
“Well, let’s go back, then. Do you remember anything specific about your parents, other than their occupations?”
I shook my head, feeling as if some floodgate that had been opened in my mind was suddenly closing. “No, I... I’m not remembering anything else. It’s as if it all just suddenly stopped for some reason.”
Propping her chin up with a fist, Irene frowned. I covered a yawn, quickly becoming tired once again. Irene told me to lie down, and I did.
After getting up to shut off a small overhead light, she sat back down by my bedside. “No more trying to remember anything further for today. You’ve already made wonderful progress. And I think you’re getting physically stronger, too. I think you’ll be ready to head on out of here and get settled into your guest quarters tomorrow, and my granddaughter Celeste will help you with all that and show you around.
And so, because of that, I just want to say... well, this is difficult. I love my granddaughter dearly, with all my heart, but I want to give you a word of warning about her. I think you might be good for each other in some ways, and I think you could both use a good friend, for sure, but you’re going to have to watch yourself around her.”
“Why?”
“Well, she’ll try to get you to do dangerous things. And you have to be prepared to just say no.”
I wasn’t quite sure what Irene was implying, but I thought I had a clue.
“Well, what kinds of dangerous things do I have to be prepared to say no to? Do you mean like... like, drugs? Does Celeste have an addiction problem or something?”
Irene chuckled, though the sound wasn’t a happy one. “Well, no, it’s nothing like that. Although at times, I do think she’s addicted to getting high in a certain way, perhaps. You see, she can be rational and mature about certain things at certain times, I suppose, but she’s a thrill-seeker. She’s kind of a renegade. Sometimes I think she’s ahead of her time for a young woman, and I mean that in two different ways, meaning too late for what the past once was and too early for what the future might eventually be... Like she’s stuck in the middle in an era where she just doesn’t quite fit. But then, other times, I think she’s just twenty-three going on fifteen. Other times I think she’ll just outgrow it all.”
“What’s ‘all?’”
“Oh... Well, you’ll see. Celeste will undoubtedly try to get you to do things like run up all the thousands of steps in The Arch here, instead of taking the elevator, because that’s part of how the men train to increase their strength and endurance, even though shifters already have greatly increased strength and endurance over regular men, even while in human form. Celeste will try to get you to train on the stairs with her in an attempt to prove that women can be strong, too. She’ll also try to get you to shoot guns and practice archery with her, because if the Gorgolians ever attack the city, she wants to help the men in the defense. Which is, well, I guess I don’t really get that. No sense in doing something dangerous like handling bows and arrows and guns when I’m sure the men will have everything very much under control.
See, Celeste wants glory, and heroism, and renown, like the men. She does want to become a wife and mother someday, but she’s never been content to look forward to only those things. Nor has she ever been content to take up any worthwhile, non-dangerous career like nursing, or teaching. No, she always has to be running up stairs, or trying to hit a target with an arrow, or trying to get inside information about the next Gorgolian attack. She’s just not content to sit back and let the men do it all.”
I didn’t answer right away. “Well, that doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable to me.”
Irene frowned. “Oh, don’t you start, too. I arranged to have Celeste show you around a bit because I thought you might be a
good influence on her. Don’t play into her hands. Just try to have a good time and a few laughs with her and enjoy yourselves. No shooting.”
“Well, once I get past all my sleepiness, I’m sure I’ll be up for some fun and laughs.”
“Well, I don’t think Celeste will disappoint you, there. She does have her little stubborn and determined streak, but she’s not all seriousness, by any means. Tell her the story of when Commander Wallace saw you with a full belly in the lounge, and what you said, and just watch Celeste laugh herself silly.”
“Oh, God, the lounge incident. That whole embarrassment.”
“Oh, tell Celeste all about it. She’ll make you think it was the funniest thing in the whole world.”
I liked Celeste already.
Soon Irene left the room, and after a short while spent kicking myself for forgetting to ask her when Jackson might be back in the city, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
***
The next day, I woke up feeling actually refreshed and not drowsy at all for the first time during my entire stay. Which was good, since I was being discharged from the hospital to start my new life, whatever the heck that would be.
Irene and the other nurses, who’d treated me like an absolute queen over the previous several days, had a little party in the lounge for me, complete with chocolate cake, streamers, and pop music playing on the radio. It sounded an awful lot like the pop music I was used to hearing, except the music didn’t sound as electronic and computerized somehow, and the vocals didn’t have a trace of auto-tune. I liked it.
One of the nurses, a red-haired woman named Liz, mentioned that I’d probably be finding some things about living in the UFS very familiar, and similar to what I was used to, but other things radically different. “For one thing, our technology is far more advanced in some areas than what you’re probably used to, like for example, vehicles now drive hovering several feet above the roads. It’s more economical that way, because the roads only have to be repaired very occasionally. But other things, like pop music, food, and clothing, you might find those almost the same as what you’re used to. Which might seem funny to you. That would be the case because after the Great War, people kind of clung to the old styles and ways for a certain sense of security and I guess that has kind of endured.