The Other

by Matthew Buscemi

  Had he established that Charles was not hostile? Almost certainly. What remained to be seen was whether or not he were some kind of sleeper agent. And, begrudgingly, Sahaan had to admit that the only place with the resources to make that determination properly was Portal City. With that, his mind turned back to his country’s political problems and the election.

  What a mess.

  The door above clanged, and Sahaan looked up to see a familiar face peek through.

  “There you are!” Bharo called down.

  Sahaan drew a finger up to his mouth and nodded toward Charles.

  Bharo seemed to catch his meaning and began carefully down the stairs. Sahaan noticed then that he was carrying a brown paper bag with the Hedgerow logo printed on the side. Bharo sat the bag on the table in front of Sahaan, then, still looking at Charles, said, “so, that’s him, huh?”

  Sahaan nodded.

  “Think he’ll sleep all night?” Bharo asked.

  “Hard to tell. He was sedated earlier.”

  “Sedated?” Bharo looked worried. “Why did you do that?”

  “I didn’t. Mayor Samaapt sent in a group of medical thugs. I got here just in time. And it’s why I asked you to come so quickly. We can’t leave him alone. Not until we get him back to Portal City. Maybe not even then. Thanks again.”

  Bharo took a seat where Charles had been sitting. “I got you covered. So, what has he told you so far?”

  “It’s a bit jumbled. Apparently, the nanite-bodied have stopped using vocal speech. They communicate in digital transmissions now. They somehow made it so that, on taking this body, he can speak our language, but he has trouble remembering the details of his life before. He’s told me about his job and about his family. Interesting societal differences, too, like no food. But nothing on their politics or government. About all I got was that it’s different.”

  “Did you say no food?”

  “The nanites recharge over RF, too, and then fuel cell ATP. They don’t need sleep, either.”

  “Huh.” Bharo turned to look at Charles on the bed. “Guess he’s making up for lost time.”

  Sahaan chuckled. “Perhaps. How’s everything going up there?”

  “Not too bad,” Bharo said. “The President’s telling everyone that you’re on it, which is making everyone feel better. I heard some stories about the police having to establish curfew in Bengine and Enerine, but no major social unrest. Hopefully it stays that way.”

  Bharo gazed over at Charles apprehensively, then he nodded at the door.

  Sahaan, taking his lead, stood and led Bharo up the stairs, where they exited the room, but remained just outside. Sahaan closed the door behind them.

  “The guards okay?” Bharo asked.

  Sahaan nodded.

  Bharo crossed his eyes and his expression grew stern. “The question though, that keeps getting asked in the media, is, ‘Can they do it again?’ And it’s a question we need to answer fast. We can replace this wall slab, and, currently, thirteen others, but if they do this fourteen times or fifteen times, then we will be in major trouble.”

  Because there would be irreplaceable gaps in the wall—the Reclamation’s worst nightmare, the plotline of various horror movies and thriller novels. Asking Charles directly was out of the question. Sahaan didn’t trust him enough yet. For all he knew, conversations with him could be going to back to the nanite-bodied. If they were hostile, and if they learned that all it would take to breach the Reclamation was fourteen more targeted wall conversions…

  Sahaan bit his lip. “I’ll see if I can get him to tell me what their plans for that are. But he might not know.”

  Bharo’s eyes widened. “He’s the only shot we’ve got at knowing.”

  “What’s the President’s strategy?”

  “The first is you. Find out from Charles whether or not they can do it again. The second is Alterra. If they can start an emergency mining effort, we might be able to cobble together two or three more walls. But that’s only a stopgap.”

  Sahaan took a deep breath in and out. His mind shot back to the study group he’d led in high school, the one he’d botched. That, at least, had only been a study group.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Bharo.”

  “Anytime. Now, how about you eat your food then get some sleep yourself?”

  “What time is it, anyway?”

  Bharo chuckled. “Eleven-thirty.”

  Sahaan scoffed as he pulled the bag open, only then realizing how hungry he was. “Thanks for bringing food.”

  “No problem.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I had mine on the train.”

  Bharo filled him in on the innocuous details of the cabinet activities while Sahaan ate through his dinner. After finishing the last of the potatoes, he said, “I want to be here when he wakes up.”

  “You sure?”

  “Last time I wasn’t here, it didn’t go so well.”

  Bharo called down one of the soldiers and muttered something to him. The soldier retreated up the stairs and disappeared out the door.

  “What was that?”

  “He’s getting us a pair of cots,” then he whispered. “You’ve got to keep your mind sharp.”

  Sahaan nodded. Perhaps with friends like Bharo and a President like Aavee he might be able to pull through this one.

  ~

  Sahaan fell asleep the very moment he lay down on the cot. His sleep was dark and dreamless, an empty void that absorbed all passing time. He awoke to the shake of his shoulder, and Bharo’s voice.

  “Sahaan. He’s awake.”

  Sahaan rolled over and pulled himself out of bed, still groggy. Charles was sitting at the table, looking bright-eyed and swinging his legs back and forth in the air.

  Sahaan stifled a yawn as he approached. “Charles. Good morning. I want you to meet my friend, Mr. Bharo Meharab.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Meharab.”

  “Nice to meet you, too, Charles.”

  “How did you sleep?” Sahaan asked.

  The question seemed to perplex Charles momentarily. “All right, I think. I can tell I feel better, recharged, but I had dreams. Strange sensation. I’d read about them, but I can’t imagine anything that would have prepared me for it. I dreamed I was back at home and the Reclamation was expanding the walls. But then everything was changed and I was back here and I was in a human body again. And none of that struck me at the time as being that odd. I accepted the inherent strangeness of those hallucinations. It was unsettling. I’m not sure we were all that wrong in giving those up.”

  Bharo gave Sahaan a wide-eyed look, which Sahaan read immediately as a kind of unspoken, ‘this is who we’ve been trying to contact for fifty years?’ Sahaan winked in response. Yes, Bharo. This is it.

  “Are you hungry?” Sahaan asked.

  Charles nodded vigorously, and this time Sahaan didn’t even have to look up at the soldiers. One began chattering on his handheld at the mention of food.

  Charles turned his head, craning his neck to look at the empty bag that had contained Sahaan’s dinner the night before. “What is ‘The Hedgerow?’”

  “Dr. Ekeer’s and my favorite restaurant in Adamantine.”

  “You were in Adamantine, Mr. Meharab?”

  “Yup. Took the train from there last night.”

  “Do you work with Dr. Ekeer?”

  Bharo nodded. “I do. I’m Communications Liaison to the Chiefs of Staff of the President of the Reclamation. It’s my job to know what’s going on in the media politically.”

  Charles perked up at that. “Has your internet changed in the last hundred years?”

  Sahaan looked at Bharo. “We’ve made the transfer protocols more efficient. Video, in particular, can be streamed much faster. But that’s about it.”

  “Our internet is completely different,” Charles said. “We experience it. And it’s… fused with how we talk. It’s all the same thing. The internet is communication.”

  Sa
haan and Bharo shared a look.

  “Does that mean that…” Sahaan struggled for a polite way to word the question. “Are there individuals, or are the nanite-bodied one big consciousness?”

  “Oh, no.” Charles shook his head. “I know where I end and others begin. There’s a boundary. But if I’m authorized to have an experience, I can communicate to someone else and share their experience, wherever they are. I’m still me, and they are still them, but we’re together, even though we might be physically separated by hundreds or thousands of miles. Sorry if that’s confusing.”

  Bharo shrugged. “It makes a kind of sense.”

  Sahaan churned that one over in his mind. No wonder it was hard for Charles to talk about politics. The political dynamics of such a people had the potential to be remarkably complex… or perhaps also remarkably simple.

  “Dr. Ekeer?”

  “Yes, Charles?”

  “What will happen to me now?”

  Bharo looked at Sahaan, who nodded his assent.

  “We’re preparing to move you to Portal City,” Bharo said.

  “What for?” Charles asked.

  “Citrine,” Sahaan jumped in, “is, in some ways, not suitable for us. We had that unfortunate incident earlier with those doctors, for which I’m very sorry. In Portal City it will be much easier to prevent such incidents from happening.”

  “I see.” Charles stared at the floor for some time.

  “You’ll like Portal City much better, I think,” Sahaan added with a note of optimism. “We had to throw this place together without notice, but they’re going to make sure your environment in Portal City is comfortable, accommodating, and safe. Right, Bharo?”

  Bharo nodded.

  “I… appreciate that.” Charles’s voice had taken on a slight tone of skepticism.

  Sahaan noted it and decided to charge forward. “It would help our preparations to know… Charles, do you expect anyone other nanite-bodied to enter the Reclamation in the same way you did?” Political capital with Charles thoroughly spent, he noted.

  Charles frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe they can’t. Or maybe some don’t want to. I’m not sure.”

  “Will anyone be upset if you don’t come back?” Bharo tried.

  Charles shook his head vigorously. “No. I’m supposed to stay here.”

  “To what end?” Sahaan didn’t realize that the tiniest hint of frustration had slipped into his question until it was out of his mouth.

  Charles bunched up his forehead, shook his head wildly and slammed his fists on the table. “I don’t know! I can’t remember. I used to know and it’s so frustrating to not remember and have you not believe me. I knew that you’d all decide I was a monster!”

  Bharo stood walked to Sahaan and pulled him up out of his chair by the arm. Sahaan acquiesced to his friend’s grip. Bharo nodded up toward the door. Charles had wrapped his arms around his head and put his head in his lap.

  Sahaan walked up the stairs and out the door in the fugue. What an idiot he’d been. Stupid. Politically inept.

  The door shut behind them.

  “Sahaan!” Bharo was holding him by the shoulders

  “Yes?”

  “Remember that girl you dated your freshman year? You came home livid because you’d had a fight, and you were convinced it was the end of the world?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not the end of the world. It wasn’t then, and isn’t now. You’re right. He’s not dangerous. I’m convinced of that after only ten minutes of seeing him awake. He’s too… weird. He’s like their version of a computer geek.”

  “He did say he was a scientist. Some kind of programmer.”

  “No surprise there. Now pull yourself together. Why don’t you go up to the surface and call your family, call the president, link in with home now that I’m here? You and he both need to calm down and process what just happened.”

  “Sure.” Sahaan shook his head. “You’re right, as usual.”

  “I’ll send a soldier if anyone else tries to barge in.”

  And with that, Bharo was back inside Charles’s cell, and Sahaan found himself walking through the hallways of C8 in the poor, shuddering lighting, wondering just how he’d let that conversation go so wrong so fast.

  ~

  The first call Sahaan made on the surface was to Lachel, who was still doing well. All of her classes had been canceled, as had school for Jaan. A curfew was now in effect across the Reclamation, and people were getting restless. Lachel, typically resourceful, had organized a grocery shopping expedition with other parents in their community, and they had acquired ample supplies. If the situation continued to deteriorate, they would not starve, but so far the police were able to keep things under control and the military had not gotten involved… yet. Jaan was well and asked about him often. Sahaan talked to him, too, reminding him to stay alert and be extra helpful to his mom.

  “What’s the boy like?” Jaan still wanted to know.

  “He only looks like a boy. He’s actually a lot older. And he’s very scared. He doesn’t have all his memories from before he came here, and what he does have is a jumble.” Perhaps, Sahaan thought, it would be best to get some proper medical attention on him. He had, after all, metamorphosed out of a wall. And, come to think of it…

  “Are you coming home soon?”

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Mostly sure. You’ll be the first to know if that changes.”

  “It’ll be better when you’re back.”

  “Then I’ll do my best to get back.”

  After he’d ended the call, Sahaan dialed into the President’s office.

  One of the office’s many secretary staff answered. “Office of the President.”

  “Hi, yes, this is Dr. Sahaan Ekeer calling for Dr. Khoj Anaveshan.”

  “One moment.”

  The familiar deep, older voice answered the phone. “Dr. Ekeer?”

  “Hello, Dr. Anaveshan. How are you doing?”

  “Could be better, though I can only imagine how you must be doing. They say you were there? You saw it happen?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “And you’re talking to him now? He’s really one them, but made into a human boy somehow?”

  “Yes, that’s about the gist of it.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Dr. Anaveshan, I need to know, has anyone been doing any analyses of the area where the wall turned into Charles— the boy, where the wall turned into the boy?”

  “I sent a team out there this morning. They should be reporting in by noon, I would expect. It’s the question the whole scientific community is asking. How did a piece of metal turn into a boy without nanites able to come anywhere near it?”

  “Right. Have you ever heard of that kind of material transmutation happening under circumstances that don’t involve nanites?”

  “None.”

  “Can you keep me updated on what your team finds out?”

  “Of course! I’m glad someone else is taking an interest in the scientific aspect of things. You remember the reason we have the walls at all, right?”

  “I think the Alterrans noticed that the area around their portal kept nanites out and they dug up the metal. Am I remembering that right?”

  “You are. And the human toll here was enormous because we didn’t apply our scientific minds in the right way. We just kept throwing energy and people at the problem. I’m trying to keep us from repeating those old mistakes.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Anaveshan. Do let me know if there’s anything I can do to support your efforts.”

  “Of course. I’ll be in touch.”

  Even if Charles couldn’t remember what they needed to know, if they could figure out how his transformation had occurred, they could potentially stop it from happening again. And the party that figured out how to do that would be the savior of the Reclamation. Just the kind of thing that could turn an elect
ion back around.

  The last call Sahaan made was to the president, who was busy preparing for his day trip to Alterra, but was quite happy to hear that Charles now had adequate protection and that Sahaan had thrown his support in with Dr. Anaveshan’s efforts.

  “One more thing,” the President said. “Last night, we got an update from the team here. The Portal City facility for Charles will be operational by end of day today. We’re preparing secure transport tonight.”

  “Already, Mr. President?”

  “That’s right. They’ve been working around the clock. The cabinet and a lot of others think that expediting his transport will help minimize the growing civil disorder. If it gets much worse, they’ll be asking me to get the military involved, and the last thing Una needs right now is a Reconciliation president declaring martial law.”

  “Understood, Mr. President. I’ll make sure Charles is ready to go.”

  “Thank you, Sahaan.”

  “Good luck on Alterra, Mr. President.”

  Sahaan ended the call, then typed out a text message to Lachel about his updated schedule.

  He took a deep breath. His confidence restored, he trod back down the stairs into the bunker. Damage wasn’t permanent, he reminded himself. Broken bridges could always be rebuilt. With relationships, honesty and openness could mend a lot of hurt. It was time to see just how skillfully he could apply that principle.

  ~

  When Sahaan walked into Charles’s cell, both Bharo and Charles looked up at him from their respective seats at the table below. With a calm smile, Sahaan proceeded down the stairs and took his place at the table.

  “I was just telling Charles about the cabinet and our different consuls.”

  “And about the differences between the Veda government and yours,” Charles added helpfully.

  “Right. That too.”

  “Great,” Sahaan said. “I’m glad to hear that you’ve been doing well. Charles, I need to apologize for raising my voice earlier. I’m very sorry to have upset you. I’d like to explain, and also to ask for your help.” This was it. Either tactical genius or a major blunder. “I’ve decided I want to trust you with this information. Perhaps it will help you understand my position. Your body formed out of a wall panel, Charles.” A flurry of handheld activity from above him, including chatter audibly loud. He didn’t care. Sahaan continued. “I wanted to find out if we should prepare for others coming here, or if it would be just you. It would also be helpful to know where they might appear if they are coming, mostly for those individuals’ safety as they enter. A lot of people in the Reclamation are very frightened right now.”