“He said that a wall slab turned into a boy that looks human,” the voice from his handheld was distant, speaking somewhere away from the receiver. The voice seemed to move back toward it. “What’s the boy doing now?”
“Just looking around.”
“What’s behind the hole in the wall? Is anything coming through?”
“Not that I can see. It’s just red earth and… I think I can see the silver on the ground in the distance, but that could just be the heat. We’re running nanogenic scans on the park, right?”
“I’m not authorized to share that—”
“This is Sahaan Ekeer.”
“Right. Yes, sir. We’re just getting back a scan now… Forty-two seconds ago there was no nanite activity anywhere in the park. We’re running another now.”
That got his mind spinning. How could that have been possible? If nanites hadn’t done this, then what had? What else besides nanotechnology could have possibly rearranged the molecules of a wall slab into a boy?
The boy took a few steps forward, and this caused the police to all immediately begin shouting for him to halt and charging their guns, in a cacophony of screaming and buzzing. The boy shrieked, and stumbled backward, wrapping his hands around his head and huddling on the ground.
Sahaan’s protection instinct surged. He turned and held up a flat palm toward the policeman. He made the motion for verbal silence, then the motion that indicated he would be going in, and to cover him. He had absolutely hated the training he’d taken when he’d first arrived in government, particularly the course about interacting with the police. How glad he now was that he’d forced himself to pay attention.
Convinced that he’d gotten the police on board with his plan, at least for now, he turned back toward the boy, who remained huddled on the ground, shuddering. Sahaan stepped carefully through the toppled chairs, trying to make as little noise as possible.
“Still no nanite activity,” the voice on his handheld announced.
“Thank you, I’m going to need to call back later.”
“Wait, sir—”
Sahaan had already hit the disconnect button on his handheld, just as he reached the far shore of the sea of chairs. He walked slowly towards the edge of the amphitheater. Now he could really see out into through the gap in the wall beyond where the boy stood. Red hills rolled away into the distance, mountains a vague shimmer beyond them. All at once, one of those hills burst and began deflating like a balloon, flattening itself out into the nothing. Those were the nanites of the nanite-bodied, which covered the surface of the entire planet, constantly reshaping it, attempting to perfect it. Everywhere except in the Reclamation.
Sahaan was close to the dangerous gap now, as close as he would dare come. The boy huddled, just inside it, perhaps five or six meters away. Sahaan adopted the calmest voice he could muster. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
The boy looked slowly up. He looked so very afraid.
“Do you understand me?”
The boy nodded slightly.
“I’m Dr. Sahaan Ekeer. What’s your name?”
“Charles.”
Charles? It barely sounded like a real word, let alone a name.
“Do you know where you are?”
Charles shook his head.
“You’re in a place called the Reclamation.”
Charles didn’t respond to that one.
“Do you know how you got here?”
Another head shake.
“Do you remember anything from before you… arrived here just now?”
Charles looked up. His eyes seemed vacant for a moment. He started to shake his head. “Lights. I think. And voices.” He furrowed his brow. “I understood them then, I think, but I don’t now.” His utter fear had seemed to morph into dire confusion.
“What do you want to do now, Charles?”
“I want the men with the guns to go away. And some clothes would be nice. You all have clothes and I don’t. I should have clothes.” Interesting. He didn’t seem humiliated by his nakedness, as Sahaan would expect. It was more like Charles recognized that it was simply the way things were supposed to be.
“I can’t make the men with the guns go away, but I can get you some clothes. I’m going to go do that now, all right?”
Charles nodded. “Thank you… Dr. Ekeer.” He gave Sahaan a slight smile, one touched with trepidation.
Sahaan turned and walked around the sea of chairs, scanning the police regiment until his eyes spotted the officer who was in charge. Sahaan approached her, and she lowered her gun, though the rest of her squad kept their gazes fixed on Charles.
“Good afternoon, sir.” Did Sahaan detect a hint of irony in her voice?
“Good afternoon, sergeant.”
“Did it say what it wants?”
Sahaan nodded.
“And?”
“He wants your squad to put their guns down, and he wants clothes. I told him he could have clothes.”
The sergeant stared at him blankly for many seconds.
“Can we get him some clothes?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right on that.”
She turned to her second in command and ordered him to put in a request. Sahaan crossed his arms and looked out over the amphitheater, the chairs, and through the hole in their wall. One hundred and twenty-one years. The nanite-bodied had been unable to even come near a shield wall for one hundred and twenty-one years, let alone breach one, and now this.
It hit him all at once—the election, Una and Gadh. Oh, no. No, no, no. Gadh could not become president. Especially not now.
He grabbed up his handheld and dialed his office in Parliament.
“Sir!” the voice on the other end struck a note of shock. “You’re all right!”
“That remains to be seen. Tell me the polling numbers.”
“We have to run a full report. Sometimes the instant polling data is inaccurate, especially in a situation like this—”
“What is the instant data?”
“Besserine, Adamantine, Eline, and Barine have all flipped Gadh. That would give him the election. But, sir, we still need to run more data—”
His aide continued speaking, but Sahaan had stopped listening. His gaze was focused on the small, naked boy, who’d returned to huddling and shivering before the landscape of self-sculpting red hills beyond their walls.
~
Lachel sat across from the table staring at him intently, the conundrum within her mind twisting up her beautiful features. She didn’t seem angry, exactly. More perplexed than anything else.
The table was in a small cafe in Dazine, where the two of them had retreated, in order to get some time to themselves away from their history classmates. They had been dating for about a year, now both in their third year of university. The Dazine trip was to visit the ruins of the old base D3, from which Stok Thiksay had recovered the access codes to open what was then the sealed metaxic portal. There was nothing left of the building now—the nanite-bodied had devoured the ruins after Stok’s team had retrieved the access codes. A park, a memorial statue, and a museum now stood at that spot.
“Stok was a pacifist,” Lachel insisted.
Sahaan nodded. “A pacifist who picked up a gun when he saw one of the bases being overrun and the horrific enforced transformations of the people there.”
“But your grandmother…”
“I agree with her.”
“And your great uncle…?”
“He’s not wrong.”
“Then what is he?”
“Not right.” Sahaan shook his head. “In history classes, we’re so focused on Reclamation history, starting with the incorporation of Portal City. I’ve always found Alterran history much more interesting.”
Lachel seemed to be searching her memory for something about it. “What about it?”
“The history of the Institute.”
Lachel furrowed her brow. “The Alterran university?”
Sahaan nodded. “When
Stok and Le were our age, there was no Institute. Instead, they had two schools: the Monastery and the University. Students had to choose. Learn about history and literature, or learn about math and science. You couldn’t choose an integrated curriculum like you can now in either Alterra or the Reclamation. And mom’s always insisted on this when she tells the story: people in Alterra couldn’t even conceive of integrating them. You might as well have suggested mixing oil and water. And this led to the creation of two political parties, two sides that grew progressively more hostile toward one another.”
Lachel nodded. “You see the same thing happening now, with Reconciliation and Guardian.”
“Yes.”
“But what Guardian wants—”
“Isn’t insane. To the extent that we need to be able to defend ourselves. Have you ever seen out over the walls?”
“My father took me up the Tower once.” She referred to Outlook Tower in Eline, the second tallest structure in the Reclamation, which provided a spectacular and frightening view of the Enim Valley, its ever-shifting hills and blotches of metallic grass.
“The walls keep us safe, but they also make us blind. I get the feeling that, in Reconciliation, people sometimes forget how perilous our world really is. They’re too quick to assume that if we just approach the nanite-bodied with open arms, they’ll be our best buddies. And don’t get me started on the fringe groups that think we’ve ‘oppressed’ them. They were trying to murder us.”
Lachel jolted to a stance.
Sahaan knew immediately that he’d gone too far.
“Lachel.” He put a hand on her shoulder.
She removed it. “Don’t follow me.” She stormed gracefully out of the cafe and walked away down the streets of Dazine.
Sahaan slumped back into his seat and gulped, wondering what he’d say to her next. He considered texting her an apology on his handheld. He’d summoned up the courage to do just that when the waiter arrived with both of their plates. Sahaan gave him a weak smile, and the waiter returned a knowing look, set down both plates, and retreated into the kitchen.
~
Once the initial shock of Charles’s appearance had passed, Sahaan found himself gazing out through the gap in the wall, silent and transfixed, a cold, dark terror crawling up over him, smothering all action. It felt unreal. There had never been a gap in the walls.
One missing slab in and of itself wasn’t dangerous. The wall slabs’ efficacy came from the quantum field they generated. If they had simply been slabs of iron, then the nanites would simply climb up and over them. But these were not simply physical walls. Each slab had been exposed to an open metaxic portal for sixteen years or more and had thus gained a quantum field that let large bodies pass through, but repelled microscopic ones—ones like nanites.
It would take four consecutive missing segments to let the nanites through. Everyone knew that. With only one, two, or even three missing segments, the fields would overlap enough to keep the nanites out. But not four.
Even knowing that they remained relatively safe from the nanites beyond the walls, the horror of that vacancy stifled all Sahaan’s thoughts. He could only stare at the gap, through to the silver-laced hills beyond. The police around him still stood, their weapons pointed at Charles. The boy sat on the ground, cross-legged, his hands wrapped around his head.
An officer emerged from the group, breaking Sahaan’s trance. He carried a pile of clothing in his arms. He stepped carefully through the wreck of the chairs, set the clothing down a few meters in front of Charles, then retreated, backwards toward his contingent, tripping every few steps over chairs.
Sahaan took a deep breath and willed himself to take action. The first thought that came to his mind was Jaan, Lachel following immediately in his wake. He fumbled for his handheld and dialed home.
Lachel answered, breathless. “Tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m fine.”
A long silence. She must have been so relieved. “They’re saying… the news says… there’s a hole in the wall.”
“Yes. There’s a hole. It’s just one panel. But it’s a hole.”
“Sahaan… what’s happening?”
He bit his lip, but only for a moment. She was tough. He didn’t need to cover anything up for her, but anything he did share would be mere speculation. “I don’t know.”
“Will you be able to come home?”
“I don’t know. The police are here. The rest of the local government will be arriving soon, I’d expect.”
“On the news, they’re also saying…” A gulp. “That Gadh’s going to win.”
“He does want to build more walls, after all.”
A weak laugh. “Are you sure you’re not in any danger?”
Now he really bit his lip. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Stay safe.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Sahaan ended the call.
Charles was now fumbling with the clothing, a T-shirt and shorts, which were a bit too big on him. He looked almost comical, a tacky, red shirt and shorts with a pair of beaten up hiking boots. And the way he moved. It was almost as if having a body, or rather this body, was a new experience for him. When he moved, he threw his limbs about with too much force, as though he was accustomed to moving a much larger and heavier frame.
The nanite-bodied averaged five or six meters tall, their forms densely packed with muscle, all of their organs suspended in a cloud of nanite activity. Sahaan wondered if Charles had been such a being until recently.
“Dr. Ekeer?”
Sahaan turned. Behind him stood a well-dressed man in his sixties. Some ways behind the police cars, just at the edge of the amphitheater parking lot, sat a contingent of six black cars with tinted windows. Sahaan recognized him as the mayor of Citrine, but it took him a few moments to recall his name.
“Mayor Samaapt.” Sahaan managed. “It’s too bad we’ve had to meet under such circumstances.”
The mayor nodded morosely. He was staunchly Guardian, if Sahaan recalled correctly. The mayor twisted his lips around, then said, “What is the situation?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but that boy over there—” Sahaan turned and pointed; Charles, now fully clothed, had returned to sitting on the ground with his hands wrapped around his head. “Well, the wall panel turned into him.”
The mayor was silent for many moments, his expression blank. “No,” he finally stated. “The nanites can’t get near the wall, let alone touch it, let alone change its molecular structure. That can’t have been what happened.”
“That’s what I saw.”
The mayor sighed.
“There is no nanite activity in the park. We’ve confirmed that.”
“Indeed. But walls do not just turn into boys.”
“I suppose not.”
“What do you suppose he is?”
Sahaan’s eyes widened. “We have to suppose he’s human until we prove otherwise.”
“Do we?”
“I think we do. I insist we do.”
The mayor shot him a dangerous look. “Are you proposing he stay?”
“What are you proposing?”
“That we wall him out, of course.”
Sahaan’s mouth hung agape only momentarily. “We’re not doing that. It’s inhuman.”
“He’s not human. He’s one of them.”
“We don’t know anything about him.”
“Wall panels do not just turn into boys.”
“No, they don’t.”
“When that wall slab arrives, I want him walled out—”
Sahaan straightened his back and locked his gaze with the mayor’s. “That wall slab is federal property. If you want it installed, you will install it with every human and presumed human inside Citrine. Is that clear?”
The mayor nodded. “It is. We’ll play it your way, doctor.” He turned to walk away, then added, head turned over his shoulder. “This is w
hy we vote Guardian out here in the spokes. Because, at the end of the day, it’s clear whose side you’re all really on.”
Sahaan shook his head. “You’re lashing out because you want safety and security. I’m trying to give it to you.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
The mayor turned his back to Sahaan and walked back to his black car.
~
During their final year at university, Sahaan and Lachel both got absorbed in their respective majors. Lachel applied to law schools while Sahaan applied for internships with Reconciliation. Their weekdays became a flurry of classes, papers, exams, and applications, leaving only a few scant hours on the weekend to spend time together, but they made time for each other. Every Seventhday without fail, they looked up a new recipe on the net, tried it out, ate together, and watched a movie. The food and the films ranged in quality, but regardless of how their experiments turned out, Sahaan enjoyed himself.
One evening, after a particularly good dinner and a particularly good movie, they found themselves talking about what their lives would be like after graduation.
“It doesn’t seem real yet,” Lachel observed.
“I don’t think it will until it happens.”
She paused then and looked at him. She leaned closer to him, putting her elbows on her knees. “How do you want it all to go?”
“What? Life?”
She nodded.
“How do you mean exactly?”
“What do want to accomplish? What do you want it all to be like?”
Sahaan thought for many moments. Finally, he said, “When I was in high school, I remember this time in my first public speaking class. We got assigned to random groups of four, and the teacher asked us to choose one person in each group who would be the spokesperson for that group for the rest of that activity. In other words, the leader. And everyone, like always, looked at me. And I remember feeling, for the first time, as though this was becoming a pattern, a thing that kept happening in these kinds of situations, and so I asked them, why me? What about me made them want me to do this? And they just sort of shrugged and said it seemed like my kind of thing, and I clearly enjoyed it, so it just seemed natural that I do that. I realized I had the power to inspire others to follow my direction, and, being sixteen completely overconfident, I proceeded to lead my group into bombing the activity. I realized then that it wasn’t enough to just have this charisma I never asked for. I had to learn voraciously, and that I had to really listen, and not just assume I know better. And that it would be so very possible for me to mess things up. So, I guess I want to inspire others, and not make a mess of things. I want to see everyone around me be their best. And when I look at all of the Reclamation, I see us… kind of… moving apart, if that makes sense. I want us to move together for once. I’m don’t know about all the details, but if I can just make things a little better rather than a little or a lot worse, I’ll take that as a victory. Does that make sense?”
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