by KT Belt
“Yes,” Carmen answered, though her mind was too preoccupied to really pay attention to what he was saying. “We can sense it. It’s like knowing someone’s face but deeper. You always remember a Clairvoyant you’ve met before,” she added.
“Interesting. I’d like to discuss that further, if we may.”
Carmen nodded out of reflex, but she wasn’t thinking about a word he said. She instead thought about the dead Clairvoyant Constructs. She thought about Phaethon, and what Caelus and maybe even Rauon may have done to him. On and on, the idea turned in the corridors of her mind till she had to give voice to it.
“Where do you get the natural Clairvoyants?” she asked, interrupting whatever he was saying.
“Oh, them? No one place in particular,” he said. “Some are prisoners of war, but we get very few of those for obvious reasons. Most are children, bought from slavers or mercenary groups.”
“Children?” Carmen asked, surprised. “How young?”
“We don’t discriminate by age. It’s hard enough to get Clairvoyants to study as it is,” he answered. “I believe the youngest ever brought here was around three or four standard months old.” Rauon was still behind her and couldn’t see her grimace. “I don’t know where they get them from. I always assumed they were kidnapped in civilian raids, probably on less well-defended colonies.”
“So, these groups invade some outlying colony and steal their children?” Carmen asked, turning to face him. He stopped what he was doing and groaned again. “Sorry,” she muttered after a sigh. Then she faced forward and redoubled her efforts to stay still.
“I can’t say for certain. It’s just a guess,” he said. “Clairvoyants are in high demand. You should know that. Even, if not especially, children.”
“Why does anyone want children?”
“As I said, we take what we can get,” Rauon said. “I’d like to have statistically relevant numbers of multiple age groups if I could. Now, for any specific preferences, I can only make educated guesses.”
“Guess, please,” she said as she pondered the possibilities herself.
“Well, there are many ways a young Clairvoyant can be an asset,” he began. “Despite a Clairvoyant’s inherent intuition, young and especially very young Clairvoyants can still be influenced and even controlled into a certain way of thinking or acting, which can be beneficial. The mind is fragile and can be irrational. I believe terrans call it the ‘carrot and the stick,’ for whatever reason. The right abuses in the right ways—pressure applied in just the right points and in just the right amount—can make an individual do or become anything you want them to be. Some methods are more brutal than others.” He paused for a moment as he fiddled with something on his PDD. “It is interesting science that I’ve thankfully never had to undertake. But I do have some studies I can give you, if you’d like to read them.”
Carmen felt a chill along her spine. Rauon walked in front of her, and she watched him with her eyes. “I’d rather not,” she said with a hollow voice.
He made no reply as he sat down. He was still dealing with his PDD. Carmen waited patiently.
“Scan is complete,” he eventually said. “I do apologize. I know it’s difficult to stay still for so long.” Carmen raised her hand and shook her head. “But, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you some questions. Please answer as truthfully and completely as you can.”
She leaned back slightly, caught off guard by the change in focus. “What type of questions?” she asked, curious.
“Tell me about your parents?”
“My parents?” Carmen asked.
“Yes. There is a component of what makes a Clairvoyant clairvoyant that is genetic, though it is difficult to say how much. We will sequence your genes, but for now, anything you can tell me will be helpful. Honestly, I prefer interviewing. Raw data never gives the complete picture.”
“Oh,” she muttered.
“And you can skip any physical description. That doesn’t really matter. Tell me about their personality, history…anything you can,” he added before she could get started.
Carmen sat quietly for a long moment. It wasn’t really a question anyone had ever asked her before. Clairvoyants, and most normals who weren’t terrified of her, knew better than to ask. Even Michael had never asked her about her parents. She looked at Rauon. His face was eager and curious, as it always was. Her gaze dropped as her thoughts turned inward.
“I don’t really know my parents,” she said. “Potential Clairvoyants are taken at a very young age to a special facility for training and…adjustment,” she continued, trying to find the most accurate description of the process. “I was taken when I was six, which is about standard.”
“Yes, yes, I know of this practice,” Rauon said. “However, I hoped you’d be able to tell me something about them. Is there really nothing you can say?”
Carmen looked down again as she thought. “I know they were sad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know,” she said. “I don’t remember much from…before, but when I think of them, I know they were sad. They never said anything to me about it. I just knew. Just…sadness, all the time.”
Rauon paused to write something down. “Did you ever try to reconnect with them as an adult?”
“No,” Carmen said simply.
“Why not?”
Her eyes looked away from his and searched. She’d never really thought about it before. She knew of no Clairvoyant who had done such a thing. It was difficult to find the right words so that he’d understand.
“They are my parents,” she said, looking at him again. “But everything I am, everything I have become, has nothing to do with them.” Rauon opened his mouth to speak, and Carmen cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about them anymore,” she said firmly but without anger.
He gave a silent affirmation and then moved on to his next question. “May I ask you about your time at the facility?”
“Why?”
“For all our science, we’re not terran,” Rauon said with yet another groan. “Sorten science is generally more advanced, but when studying themselves, terrans will always have the advantage of perspective. It’s possible they discovered something about Clairvoyants that we either overlooked or didn’t even know to look for.”
Carmen nodded slowly. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything you feel open to telling me. Remember, please be as complete and truthful as you can.”
She nodded again, and her gaze dropped once more while she thought. It was difficult to know exactly where to start. No one had ever really asked her that either. The facility was so far behind her that it never really entered her daily thoughts. She didn’t see how the question mattered.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Rauon said.
“No, no, it’s fine,” she uttered quickly.
While she figured out a proper response, she subconsciously touched her chest where Janus had shot her all those years ago. The wound was without any form of scar, such was the state of medical technology, but she could still find the exact spot without needing to reflect.
“The majority of the facility is underground. I don’t know why,” she began, her voice monotone.
“What is its name?” Rauon cut in.
“I don’t know,” Carmen replied after a little searching. “It has a name, but I don’t know it. The facility just kind of…is. Everyone refers to it that way—staff, handlers, everyone. It’s the facility. That’s all it is. I’ve never wondered what its name was before.”
“Go on.”
She nodded and continued. “Time was always very weird there. We had no windows or clocks. There were no annual or monthly events, as far as I knew. I mean, no one celebrated birthdays or anything like that. You just knew what needed to be done for that day. Each day was basically the same.” She shuddered. “I’d wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and not know if it was day or night, if I w
as dreaming or awake. Occasionally, my handler would come for me and I wouldn’t know it wasn’t a dream for hours.”
“What was your average day like?” Rauon asked.
“My handler would collect me in the morning and I’d fight constructs. Then I’d go to class, and after that I’d have another fight. I was usually done after that,” she said matter-of-factly.
“So basically just fighting?”
“Yes,” Carmen said with a sharp nod. “My handler would talk to me, trying to teach me all sorts of stuff. It never really ended. I just fought constructs on and on and on, every day,” she added. “But I do remember one day when I was very young when I had to levitate a room full of sand.”
“A room full of sand?” Rauon asked.
“Yeah,” she replied, unable to help a small smile. “I learned a lot from that—how to think, how my abilities work. Before that everything was so conscious. If I wanted one of my dolls to fly across the room, it did. If I wanted a cookie, it came to me like magic. But I was aware that I was doing it.”
“What about after?” Rauon asked eagerly.
His enthusiasm made Carmen laugh. “I don’t really think about it,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked, obviously miffed.
“Exactly what I said. I don’t really think about it. I still don’t know how I can do what I do, but I just am, just like you just are. I don’t really consciously think of any of it…most of the time.” She could see the confusion on the sorten’s face and decided to elaborate. “It’s like breathing, walking, running, or your heart beating. You don’t think about it, it just happens. A master painter doesn’t think out each and every brush stroke. It—”
“Just happens,” Rauon said, finishing for her.
Carmen nodded. “For the most part, that’s it. At least, that’s the best way I can explain it.”
He gave his acknowledgement and then moved on to his next question. “Were there any other events at the facility that stand out for you?”
“Let me think,” Carmen said as her hand went to the scarless spot on her chest.
She eventually realized what she was doing and quietly moved her hand away, closing her eyes as she did so. In that moment, her twelve years at the facility endlessly churned in her mind. No one event or day came into focus. Her thoughts didn’t sway to Mikayla, Janus, or Kali. She didn’t relive every moment of her first fight or her first kill. She’d long analyzed, rationalized, and compartmentalized every memory she ever had of the place. There was her time with Janus, and there was her time with Kali. There was her time alone with Mikayla, and there was her time with her handler. Of course, there was also her time after Mikayla, when she was just alone. She could find no real meaning in any of it and doubted Rauon could either. There was nothing that stood out, not really.
Despite that, all the same feelings, never completely forgotten, were readily summoned despite no wish to do so. The same fear Carmen had felt on an almost daily basis coursed through her veins in a cancerous rot that, just like then, sapped the whole of her strength. The smiles that had come to her face mere moments ago were a barely remembered dream of another person she’d never be fortunate enough to meet again. Her body quaked. The feeling of all-pervading powerlessness drenched every moment, just as it had in those long past tear-filled nights.
“I’m sorry,” she said after taking a deep breath and opening her eyes. “There really isn’t anything. It all kind of blends together after a while,” she continued, staring off into the distance as she spoke.
“You sure?” Rauon asked, visibly disappointed.
“Yes.”
“All right. Anyway, you said earlier that you were taken to this facility for training and adjustment. What was the purpose of this adjustment?”
Carmen looked away for a second to think. “I don’t really know,” she said.
She sat back in her chair and, with no real thought, played her fingers through her hair as she had when she was a kid, before she ever went to the facility. The tie for her ponytail, however, restricted the adventures her fingers could take to only a small range of what was possible. On and on her fingers went, constrained to the same tracks over and over again, even though they were unaware of it. She tired of the journey and rested her hair on her shoulder. It was long enough for her to get a good look without having to turn her head too much.
“I honestly don’t really know what the adjustment is for. I just know that it happens.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was a handler for a period of time,” she began. “So, I know both sides. When I was in the facility, I always assumed there was some grand plan the handlers followed. I assumed they were three or four steps ahead all the time. But when I was a handler for the facility, I never really got any direction. I could ask for advice, of course, but I was implicitly trusted with all aspects of my charge’s life.”
“What did you teach your charge?” Rauon asked.
“Not really much of anything,” Carmen said with a shrug. “I wasn’t a very good handler,” she added.
“So, then why were you allowed to be one?”
“I don’t know,” she said yet again. It was now Rauon’s turn to look at her hard, and it was easy to see she wasn’t being very helpful. “I got the impression that handlers were assigned based on personality to their prospective charges.”
“You and your charge were a lot alike?” the sorten interrupted.
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. “Ph—he,” she started, stopping herself from saying his name, just in case. “He was fiery,” she continued, looking away as she thought of him. She smiled. “He was always looking for a fight.”
“And that’s obviously not like you…I hope,” Rauon said.
Carmen took the joke for what it was and smiled again. The conversation, however, took her spirits away too much for her to actually laugh. “No, that’s definitely not me,” she agreed. She reflected on Phaethon some more. “But there was something else about him. Deeper. He hid that side from me. I suppose all assets keep something from their handler, yet it…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find the right word.
“Yet it what?” Rauon asked.
She glanced at him. “It was hopeful.”
“I see,” he said solemnly.
“…No,” Carmen replied, “you don’t.”
Rauon opened his mouth to make a comment but then thought better of it. The two of them sat in silence for a short while till he realized she had nothing else to say. He turned his attention to his PDD.
“I thank you for your input. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it is helpful,” he said as he took notes. Carmen nodded. “I’ll just be a few minutes.” With that, he went back to his PDD, and she got comfortable.
She watched him as he studiously wrote down everything. She had never been one for notes or journaling, like Phaethon. Most of her time was spent trying to forget. There was no perfect account of her past. Even if there were, she would be hard-pressed to believe any of it. She didn’t believe it when it was happening. Like almost everything in a Clairvoyant’s life, it just was. There was no intrinsic meaning behind any of it.
She wasn’t content to just sit in silence as the scientist continued his work. “What do you use the interview for?” she asked. “It can’t really be that useful.”
“I’m not sure what I can use it for. Not yet,” Rauon responded. “With things like this, Clairvoyants and really everything, it’s hard to know what is relevant or important in the moment. Years from now,” he said, holding up his PDD for emphasis, “this interview could be the key to solving the mystery. Anything is possible.”
“I doubt it,” Carmen said.
“You never know. It’s my job to always be open to the possibility. That’s the entire point of my research: the possibilities.”
Carmen shook her head while pursing her lips in disbelief. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?” Rauon asked
.
“Do what you do. You’re receptive to almost everything. It’s…different,” she said. “You’re nothing like Caelus or Mugal.”
“You’ve suggested that before, but we all want the same thing. The project leader and the security director have their ways. I know you don’t agree with them, but they are just as reasonable as I am. Maybe more so.”
Carmen shook her head again. “I think you’re selling yourself short. Like, I’m sure you have a life outside of Solitary. I can’t imagine Caelus doing anything other than driving himself crazy as he tries to figure out something or another about Clairvoyant beasts,” she said, trying to imitate his tone.
“No,” Rauon said. He seemed confused by the suggestion. “Most everyone here is solely focused on our end goal and nothing else.”
She didn’t respond right away. She thought about his quarters and the single-minded focus evident in every inch of the space, but then she thought about the picture in his room of the other sortens that said “Never Forget.”
“You don’t have a family?” she asked, confused.
Other than a brief pause in his note-taking, it seemed like Rauon didn’t hear her words. He went back to his work like he had no other concern. Carmen waited, and for the first time since she’d been in Solitary, the head technician ignored her.
“Well?” she asked again.
He glanced at her. “I had a family.”
“Had?”
“Yes, had,” he answered coldly, taking her aback. “They died in this war, in the destruction of our home worlds by the terrans. I would have been with them, but I decided to forgo my vacation to finish some research I was doing here.”