Citizen: Season One | Uncured Series

by Maggie Ray

  When the next song starts, my stepfather nudges me, so I remember to light a candle. This is the curing song, the one that’s meant to remind us to be good and peaceful, so we won’t fall victim to the sickness. They want us to be grateful for the cure.

  Those of us who have lost people to mental illness are meant to walk down and light a candle in remembrance of our loved ones.

  I’m special because I get to light two.

  My knees wobble on the way down the aisle, and I swear I can feel eyes pressing into my back like thorns. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I flush hot all over.

  Being noticed isn't something I'm used to. Despite the treacherous red hair, I've always been otherwise easy to overlook, which is something I've taken great comfort in. I'm not even sure why. My twin sister never seemed to have this problem, when she was alive. People were naturally drawn to her.

  It's like she was structured differently, despite being made of the same stuff.

  I wait in line for my turn. There’s a wall of candles, all laid out in neat rows, and they give you a match. My hand shakes and someone steps on the backs of my shoes. I whip around and meet a pair of cured eyes, brown and foggy like flat puddle water.

  “Sorry,” the girl says. “I didn't see you there.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe I really am imagining things.

  As I return to my seat, I try to spot Rory's parents in the pews. Maybe she’s there with them, maybe I’m making stuff up in my head and nothing at all bad has happened.

  But then I spot them in the crowd of faces, their heads turned towards the front, freshly cured and stiff as robots.

  Rory isn’t with them.

  5

  Outside, the afternoon has broken with a hot and unforgiving sun. As the church empties in a slow current, I scan the faces for Rory’s parents, but I’ve lost track of them in the crowd.

  I'm about to give up when I spot someone else.

  “Sabine?” My stepfather notices when I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “I'll be right back,” I say.

  The peacekeeper starts to object, but I break away and walk straight into the street, cutting across to the opposite side, seized by an impulse.

  Up ahead, amidst the crowd, is the unmistakable tall frame of George Maize.

  I push past the confused looks and frowning faces. I'm going the wrong direction, like a soldier stepping out of formation, singlehandedly ruining our carefully planned parade. I don't care. I walk fast, drawn in by a magnetic pull.

  Perhaps it's my many failed attempts not to think of him that have somehow conjured him, like some cruel trick of fate. Perhaps it’s a sign, or a test.

  Either way, I can’t help myself.

  George doesn’t see me coming. He's got his back turned, his peacekeeper at his side, headed towards home. The peacekeeper looks laughably small next to him, just a little man in a little black coat, not to mention terribly unthreatening. At least, in comparison to my peacekeeper, which makes me wonder, not for the first time, why I've been assigned one of the worst.

  What is it about my family that marked me as a bigger threat to society than the tall and assuming George Maize?

  There are no answers waiting on the sidewalk, but they aren't what I'm chasing. I don’t even know what I’m planning to do or say as I cut a path through the mass, all I know is I need to speak to him. Now.

  I'm breathless by the time I reach his side.

  “Wait,” I call. “George, wait.”

  As though in slow motion, he stops, turns, and blinks. His dark eyes settle on my face and I feel their weight. He's even better looking than I remember. Although I think this every time we meet, don’t I? It's like the first time all over again, that gut-punch feeling.

  Despite the fact I've clearly just chased him down the street, he looks calm and collected. Muted to the world, like my stepfather—like everyone else.

  I don’t know why I expected anything different, but the revelation comes as a shock.

  He's not looking at me, I realize. He's looking straight through, as though I'm hardly even there—as though I'm just a shadow of a person, standing next to my sister, being incinerated.

  Something collapses within me, something not unlike defeat.

  The truth is George and I were never really friends. We were only friends by association. But now it’s more than that: we’re reduced to complete strangers.

  All at once, I wish I hadn't chased him. None of the comfort or familiarity I was seeking is here.

  “Sabine,” George says, voice flatter than the asphalt beneath our shoes. “What is it?”

  I attempt to recover. “Nothing, sorry. I only wanted to ask—”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if you'd seen Rory?”

  He shakes his head. “Why would I?”

  The sun suddenly feels even hotter, boring down on me like an accusatory spotlight. The top of my head burns, like my red hair might catch on fire.

  “I just thought you might have,” I say. You, of all people.

  He shakes his head softly before walking away, the tiniest of puckers lodged between his eyebrows. I watch him go, feeling lost and abandoned on that sidewalk, wondering what’s happened to all the people I used to know.

  It’s the peacekeeper's hand that lands on my shoulder, snapping me back to reality. I shudder at the feel of his touch and cower beneath the weight of his steely eyes, feeling small and insignificant, guilty in the face of my disobedience.

  “We're going home,” he commands in a low voice. “Now.”

  I obey. What choice do I have?

  We walk back to rejoin my stepfather in silence. This time, it's not just my imagination: people really are staring. They watch the cursed redhead girl cowering beneath the heavy hand of the unforgiving peacekeeper, like mental illness itself being escorted away.

  It isn't until we're home, safe from prying eyes, that the peacekeeper takes me aside.

  “I think we should postpone your return to work,” he says. “I’m going to schedule a follow-up appointment at the clinic.”

  My stomach drops. “What for?”

  “Just a precaution,” he says, and coming from him, the words sound like a death sentence.

  6

  The clinic still smells the same, the morning of my check-up appointment. Citrusy and clean, as though it could wipe your mind of impure thoughts. Every couple minutes, one of the smart-walls of the waiting room flickers and illuminates a name, attached to a room number.

  All heads turn to look.

  It's not my turn. Someone else gets up and walks out a side door.

  Frustrated, I close my eyes and press my hand to my temple, hoping to repel the beginnings of a headache that's been plaguing me since I arrived.

  It doesn't help that I'm wrought with nerves, although I try not to let it show. Being nervous doesn't seem like the kind of thing a cured person does.

  The waiting room is full today, everyone packed in soft plastic chairs. None of us are here on urgent appointments. The curings still take priority, they’re dishing them out by the hour, but the rest of us are here for regular stuff. Check-ups, like me.

  It's been twenty minutes now and my name still hasn't appeared on the wall, and with every second that passes, my headaches grows worse. I have to squint beneath the harsh lighting.

  Across the aisle from me, one of our neighbors is sitting with his head slumped, not looking too good either. His cheeks are flabby and pale like egg whites, as though he might throw up at any moment, and I tuck my feet inwards, just in case he decides to get sick right on the floor between us.

  He lives on my street. Three-doors down, in a big house all by himself. I search my brain for his name.

  Toma, I think.

  He looks up, as if I’ve said it out loud. Our eyes connect and his are tired looking, sunken in. At first, it’s just a simple glance, vacant and meaningless, but then our gaze continues to hold—he won’t releas
e me—and there’s something increasingly pleading about his eyes, like he’s silently begging to be saved.

  I feel a pang of alarm. I can’t help him. If anything, I would only make things worse. I always do.

  I quickly turn my eyes to the black of the floor. The tiles look so shiny and seamless, you’d think you could fall straight through.

  I wish I would. I don't know how much longer I can sit here with this headache, while the overpowering scent of citrus chokes me softly.

  As usual with the scent citrus, the memory of school was first in my mind. It's only after sitting here for a while that my head begins to throb steadily, and I’m hit with a second memory. It rises to the surface out of nowhere, sudden and vicious, catching me off guard.

  I’m remembering my curing.

  I can remember walking out of the operating room on the arms of two medical assistants, and how it felt like I was floating, like it didn't make sense for my legs to be transporting me. The assistants left me in a small, separate room where the lights were low and soft music played over invisible speakers. The walls glowed with very pale, interchanging colors, blurring the world all around, as though standing inside a mirage.

  I remember feeling very small and forgotten, as I often have in my life, but then someone came in, and bent to look me in the eyes, and remained like that for a long time, as though checking—searching. The eyes were blue, and the coat was black. He said nothing the whole time, he just looked, and I got the strangest feeling. A comforting rush in my belly, as if I was seen—as if I wasn’t alone.

  As if I was safe.

  When the wall flashes again, this time it reads Sabine LeRoux next to the number eleven.

  Relieved the wait is over, I shake off the confusing memory and push up from my seat to exit through one of the side doors. Down the hall, behind another door, number eleven turns out to be a little room with two chairs and a desk. I take the chair facing the desk.

  The furniture is the same shiny black as the floors, as though molded from it. The walls and the ceiling are all one giant moving picture, clouds floating across a pale sky; a screensaver playing on a loop.

  I’m not kept waiting for long. The door swishes open, and I look up instinctively, just as a ghost enters the room—an apparition from the past—dressed in the same soft blue uniform as all the others.

  At first, all I do is blink at her, convinced my eyes are playing tricks. What is she doing here? Why did she come back?

  The blonde hair is shorter, cut straight and chin-length, exactly like mine. It’s a popular hairstyle these days, the bluntness of it intentional, meant to embody order and correctness. The eyes have changed, too, like the green has faded, but then I suppose the cure does that.

  I’m speechless for a moment, unsure how to react. I haven’t seen Corinne in years. She left almost eight years ago now, to become a healer in one of the big city collectives, and that's the last time any of us saw Rory's big sister. All we’d ever received since were letters, stories of her new busy life.

  In those letters, it always sounded like she never meant to come back.

  And yet here she is.

  Right away, I think: this can't be good. She wouldn't come back for just any reason.

  Something has happened.

  “Sabine.” Her voice is barely marked with recognition, her face flickering with the faintest of polite smiles. “Good to see you. I'm here to do a few, quick tests.”

  I can’t find my voice and she doesn’t wait for me to. She sits and produces various pieces of medical equipment from the desk. Some are the usual ones; others are completely foreign.

  She works fast, barely meeting my eyes, moving efficiently through the motions, as though functioning on autopilot. She takes my blood sample with a prick of my finger, checks my reflexes and my temperature, flashes a device in front of my eyes while I attempt not to blink.

  One of the devices scans my brain activity, which then appears on the smart-wall. I peek at it from the corner of my eye, wondering if you can see it. The cure. Does it show up on scans? Does it look the same way it feels, like a piece of my mind has been taken out? I search the projected image, but I can’t tell if anything is different.

  Corinne relaxes in her chair and studies me, her minty eyes poking holes into my composure. Eyes identical to Rory’s.

  I want to ask a million questions but don’t know how to start—don’t even know if I should. Are questions allowed?

  “You're not sick physically.” Corinne’s voice is flat and even. “But it's your mental health I'm concerned about. How are you feeling?”

  It’s a simple question and yet it terrifies me. “Fine,” I lie.

  She produces a tablet of smart-glass from one of the drawers and quickly types in my response. She doesn’t put it on privacy mode, so I can see every word through the glass. Each jab of her fingertips on the touchscreen is like a nail being hammered into a coffin and my pulse quickens.

  This feels like the most important test of all.

  “Please direct your attention to the wall and tell me what you see.”

  I do as she says, swiveling in my chair. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Very funny. Just give it a second to start.”

  The first thing that appears is an image of a meadow. When she asks me how it makes me feel, I describe how the meadow looks.

  “What's that?” She hasn't heard me. I'm speaking too softly again.

  I dig deep, trying to locate my voice, trying to pull it to the surface. It resists, my throat tightening, and I push against the pain. “Peaceful,” I try louder. “Sunny.”

  A smile flickers on her face for half a second. We continue, repeating the same process over a series of images, and I try my best to focus but it's hard.

  Corinne would know if something has happened to Rory. It might even be the reason she’s returned.

  It has to be.

  “You're distracted,” Corinne notes. “Pay attention.”

  The next image is of two bicycles leaning against a white picket fence.

  “Rory,” I blurt without thinking. “This one reminds me of my childhood with Rory.”

  My words seem to hang in the air after I've said them, and I feel a shrinking feeling inside, sensing I've made a grave mistake. When the image of the bicycles abruptly vanishes, followed by the wall turning blank, it takes me another full second to realize what's happened.

  I turn to face her, and Corinne has her finger on the power button. She shut it down.

  She doesn’t say anything for long seconds, and she doesn’t look at me. Her face is human-shaped, but the humanity has been wiped from it, probably long ago. There’s only the sound of our breathing—hers is calm, mine is coming out in short, uneven spurts.

  Finally, she snaps into action. She taps one final thing into her tablet, and then quickly closes my file before I can read what she wrote.

  In a rush, she's at my side.

  My voice comes out smaller than ever. “I failed, didn't I?”

  Her face doesn't move an inch. “Yes, but you can't tell anyone. You don’t know what they might do to you, or to me, or to your stepfather if they find out. We could all be guilty by association.”

  Guilty by association. Those words stick in my brain, and I blink at her in shock. “What—”

  She reaches out and clutches my hand, squeezes hard, speaking in a fast, hushed tone of voice that doesn't match her expression. “Promise me you won't tell anyone. I'll make the necessary arrangements, so it looks like you passed, but then you have to walk out of here and pretend for me, okay? If you don’t, we'll both be in trouble.”

  I stare at her speechlessly.

  “Sabine, do you understand?”

  “I understand,” I say, even though I don’t. Right now, I understand almost nothing.

  “Good. Now promise me. Promise you’ll do everything you can to stop them from finding out about this.”

  I've become trapped by her gaze, by her wo
rds. Distantly, I know this is about Rory. She’s warning me for a reason. Something really has happened—something always does to the people I care about.

  I want to know more—I need to know—and I open my mouth to ask, but she shushes me with a sharp wave of her hand.

  “That’s all I can say for now. There isn’t time. But you have to promise, Sabine.”

  I barely manage to choke out the promise. Satisfied, she helps me out of my chair and towards the door, a firm hand pressed into my back.

  “Remember what I’ve said,” she whispers—her voice crawling into my skull, where it will undoubtedly haunt me for days—just before sending me out into the world, armed with nothing but dangerous secrets and unanswered questions.

  7

  Outside the clinic, the sun is blinding, casting a sharp edge to every glass and steel surface. I squint on my way to the car. It waits, shiny and black next to the stark white of the sidewalk. My peacekeeper stands by the door in his long coat, the sun behind him, a black hole of a shadow where his face should be.

  That's how we've started referring to them. My peacekeeper, your peacekeeper. It sounds ridiculous, like we own them, when it's actually the opposite. They are the shepherds, and we are the sheep. But it would sound even more ridiculous to call him by his name. I know what it is. I've heard it on the wind, whispered like a bad omen—like it’s the name of bad luck itself.

  Alexei Rolfe.

  As I approach the car, he looks scarier than ever, knowing what I know now.

  I am uncured. Cursed, as always.

  He opens the door for me in some backwards gesture of false respect, and with Corinne's words echoing freshly in my ears, I'm struck with a surge of paranoia. Without thinking it through, I march past him and round the car to the other side, eager to keep my distance.