by Lily Markova
“Hey, don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m calling them now, hold on.”
She picked up her phone from the boardwalk, turned off the recording with her shaking fingers, and as she listened to the long beeps and watched the shadow of her ship grow smaller, she kept murmuring, “Oh, God, what have I done? What have I done?”
As soon as the whale had fallen silent, the young man breathed out noisily and went limp.
Chapter 00010
The young man felt as though his mind were spiraling down dizzyingly back into his head. When the spinning had slowed a little, he knew immediately that something was wrong. Everything was wrong.
“I don’t know, he just tripped, and he, uh—he had some kind of seizure,” he heard Joy explain to the dispatcher over the phone. “No, I don’t know if it’s epilepsy—”
“It’s not,” said a slightly electronic voice.
“Julius, are you sure? Okay, no, he doesn’t have epilepsy, um—young, twenty-five to thirty, I guess—unconscious now—”
The young man wondered whether he would be sick if he opened his eyes. His mouth tasted as if someone had squeezed a whole lemon into it and added a generous glass of cranberry juice (although he’d never tried either, he’d spent enough time studying ordinary people to know that that was exactly how they would describe the sensation). He had never passed out before. It was just one of those things he never did, just as he never ate, slept, or felt nauseated.
There was a light touch of cold skin on his lips and the tip of his nose.
“—breathing,” said Joy. “No visible injuries. Pulse? Um—”
“Heart rate: forty-eight beats per minute,” Julius prompted obligingly.
“Yes, yes, he has a pulse. Okay, thank you!” She added in a low voice, “They’re transferring me to a nurse.”
Apparently, the dispatcher had assessed his situation and didn’t consider it an emergency. That was a relief; the young man felt too weak to give Joy a sign that he was relatively present, but surely he didn’t need an ambulance to mend him? All he needed was—
“Hmm, heart rate: one hundred and ten beats per minute,” said Julius.
That was right. The young man realized he was starting to panic, and panic was another of those things he never did. His lungeyeart was more than half empty. How could it be that nobody noticed? That nobody helped? His family was supposed to feel it if somebody had less than two thirds left. They were supposed to have shared their energy with him already. Where did his energy go so fast, anyway? He couldn’t have been out longer than a couple of minutes, judging by the fact that Joy had still been on the phone when he had awakened.
It was okay, though. He would just call for them. He would just let them know something funny was happening to him. They would restore him in a second.
A loud melodic sound announced an incoming call.
“Ugh. Damn it!” said Joy. “Mom, sorry, can’t talk now. I was on the other line, and I really need to—I’m sor—no—of course it wasn’t on purp—I’m—I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to ditch you again. Tell Dad and Billy I said hi. Have fun there for me.” She added in a whispered aside to Julius, “She’s freaking out.”
The young man had felt it all along, and he couldn’t delay facing it any longer: When he had fallen, something had broken. Something that had hurt so much he’d blacked out. And it wasn’t a leg or an arm. He would actually rather have had his spine fractured.
Joy shook him gently by the shoulder. “Can you hear me? Come on, please, wake up. Um, Mr.—Mr. Unconscious?”
“Mr. You-Missed-the-Ship-Because-of-Me-My-Job-Here-Is-Done-Might-as-Well-Take-a-Nap,” Julius corrected her.
“No, Mr. If-I-Die-Now-It-Will-Be-on-You-You-Clumsy-Girl,” argued Joy.
It was the knot that had been broken. The gripping sensation at the back of his neck was gone. His heart tightened into a new knot at the thought that he wasn’t really sure they would be able to fix that. It had never happened before. At least not that he knew of. What if they didn’t know? Had they felt it when he’d been torn off, had it hurt them as much as it had hurt him?
He couldn’t manage all the questions and guesses that buzzed in his mind. His mind was too tiny. Too uninhabited. He used to have a mind calm and solid like Antarctica, and now all he had was a chunk of ice adrift in the open ocean. Would Antarctica even notice that it had broken off?
“Julius, what are you doing?”
“Just trying to collect more information.”
“You can’t smell half-dead strangers!”
“But I can. I have a good nose.”
For a second, the young man wished he really had died. These two were a catastrophe. Joy shook him again. He felt like pretending to be half dead until they got bored and left him alone. Anyway, he thought, he ought to be thankful she wasn’t trying to take advantage of his seeming unconsciousness and kiss him as ordinary people often did in their movies.
“Okay, I’m calling the nurse again,” Joy said, her voice trembling a little. “Since you can’t do the talking, will you please at least try to try to help him?”
“Like how? How can you help someone who isn’t doing anything?” It didn’t sound as if Julius was mocking her; he seemed to be truly puzzled as to what he could do for a person so evidently free of any worries.
“Well, I don’t know, keep trying to wake him, or do the CPR thing—”
Both Julius and the young man protested at the same time.
“But he’s breathing as it is, Joy,” said Julius.
“No, no, no! Please don’t,” groaned the young man, and slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking against the sharpness of the white-hot sunlight cutting through the fog.
Joy’s olive-skinned, slightly chubby-cheeked, and overly sympathetic face came into view, hanging over him and blocking out the retina-burning light.
“Oh, thank God!” she said, knitting her eyebrows. “I’m so sorry. How are you feeling?”
“We—” The young man broke off and swallowed. There was no substantial “we” anymore. Only a scrawny little “I.” He closed his eyes again and tried to call out to them. Nothing. There was absolute silence in his head. There was no one else in it.
“Error Four-Oh-Four. Operating system not found,” said Julius.
“Hey, stop it!” Joy threw Julius a quick shocked look. “We can get you to a hospital. Or would you rather we took you to your place?”
“No, I’ll wait here,” the young man said hoarsely. He cleared his throat and went on, saying more to himself than Joy, “I need to stay here so that they can find me.”
“Who?”
“My family.” He raised himself carefully on his elbows and sat up with Joy’s help. “They will come for me.”
Joy sat down beside him, crossing her legs under her skirt, which flattened out around her like a giant violet flower. “Okay. I’ll wait with you, then, to make sure you’re fine.”
The young man merely shrugged. Julius paced back and forth past them, his shoulders raised up to his ears, his thumbs in his front jeans pockets. He stole scanning glances at the young man, who could feel them drill into his forehead without even looking up. But he kept his head down, half-consciously massaging his stinging neck with his fingertips and focusing his remaining energy on thinking as hard as he could with only a hazy, lonely mind at his disposal.
How long would it take them to get here? There were about a hundred of them in this millionaire city, the name of which the young man couldn’t remember—he had lived in so many cities and towns and villages and on so many islands that their names didn’t really matter anymore. Before he had zonked out, the closest to him had been a young woman—a young woman who was the closest to him not only in a geographical sense: He had met her in person. She would need about two hours if she hurried.
But what if she didn’t hurry, because she didn’t know he needed her to? What if nobody came? What if nobody ever heard his call again? How was he supposed to find them withou
t sensing where they were?
Or what if they weren’t physically able to accept him back into the family, and the gripping sensation never returned? Nobody would hold him by his scruff anymore, and he could do whatever he wanted. . . . He felt like a teenager that had run away from home on a silly impulse only to realize all he wanted was for everything to go back to the way it used to be. The difference was that he didn’t mean to run away. He’d never sought freedom. He didn’t want anything for himself.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to cope without them. And anyway, what would be the point? Alone, having lost touch with the ones he loved and the ones who loved him, unable to fulfill the very purpose of his existence. . . . Condemned to just—
Joy and Julius interrupted his thoughts by blurting out questions simultaneously.
“What are you?” demanded Julius, stopping his pacing and turning to openly look at the young man.
“Um, so, what’s your name?” asked Joy.
—to just swim here, amongst ordinary fish.
Right. He was expected to have a name. He did have one, his ordinary-person name, but he had never been able to remember it, for it was just a pretense, a couple of fake words that didn’t make any sense. He figured that it would be somewhat suspicious if he just pulled out his ID to check his name with it.
Alone. Unheard. Ordinary fish.
“Whale,” he said grimly. “Could be Whale.”
“Wail? As in ‘cry’? Or Whale, as in ‘fish’?” said Joy. “Wait, were you answering to me, or to Jules?”
“Whales are not fish,” Julius said automatically.
The young man laughed to himself bitterly as he thought that he could now become one of those sad stories Joy often told Julius in the hope of making him feel sorry for somebody. She believed that sympathy was the last door that Julius had slammed shut behind him before withdrawing into his digital world. She believed that she would eventually find the right key to unlock it, and all other emotions would then gush out too.
Julius took a seat next to Joy. More and more people scurried past the three of them as the day grew brighter and warmer, as if it were just another day and the earth hadn’t split in two. Joy made a few more attempts to draw the young man out. She apologized once more and asked how he was again and if he had changed his mind about going to a hospital. She tried to entertain him with stories and jokingly complained that all of her clothes were in a suitcase, and the suitcase was on its way to India.
The young man was barely listening to her and only gave her monosyllabic responses. Communicating with people was the second most energy-consuming process after converting them into new subspecies. With every word he spoke, he got closer and closer to draining his lungeyeart. Would he simply die when he ran out of energy? He wasn’t ready to die, not like this, not alone. “Please, hurry,” he begged in his mind. “At least be here for me when I’m going.”
Two lingering hours passed, and the mist started to dissipate, along with Joy’s patience. She jumped to her feet, announced that she was hungry, and headed toward a cluster of quaint beach cafés, most of which were still dormant. While she was away, Julius shot the young man sidelong stares, trying to decipher his code. The young man knew that Julius could read him easily; it was the incredibility of what he saw that baffled him. The young man’s code reflected the fact that he carried all the possible (and some, to Julius, impossible) sets of human genes. To Julius, he must look like a giant monster made of lesser monsters’ body parts randomly sewn together.
Joy returned with an armful of crunchy paper bags emitting the smell of freshly baked bread. She invited the young man, rather persistently, to join them for the picnic, but despite the unexpectedly tempting aroma, he managed a polite half-smile and shook his head. There was nothing left for the pair of them to do but tuck into their veggie sandwiches and grilled corn on the cob on their own—which Joy did with a slightly guilty expression, while Julius, naturally, showed no sign of being uncomfortable with anything.
They sat like that (or rather, the young man and Julius sat, and Joy scampered around, unable to bear another minute of stillness) until the fog became thick and blue again and the two strings of diamond-shaped lanterns that were clamped to the railings began to glow softly. Every now and then, Joy called Julius aside, and the young man could hear their whispered arguing.
“No, Joy, you can’t bring it to our home!”
“You don’t get it, it was my fault—”
“Look, I know I’m always telling you this, but I have to say it again: You’re too emotional. This thing”—Julius pointed brazenly at the young man—“looks dangerous. Just leave it alone. You should learn to be more careful with strangers.”
“If I were careful, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“Yeah, but really, it’s got tentacles!”
“No, Jules, there are no tentacles. Your scanner’s acting up.”
“Yeah? What about its beak?”
“Oh, come off it!”
Only when the pier was empty apart from the three of them did it occur to the young man for the first time that the reason nobody rushed to his rescue could be far more terrible than anything he had imagined before. What if the thing that had happened to him had happened to all of them? What if his family was simply no more? What if today was the day his subspecies was undone? Without one another, they were doomed. All of them. A hundred million. What about the children? Their tiny lungeyearts would be completely wrung out by now without recharging. . . .
“Listen, um, Whale, I don’t think anyone’s coming today,” said Joy mildly, squatting down before him and trying to catch his eye. He knew she was looking at him as if he were a wounded animal (which, technically, he was), so he refused to meet her gaze. “You really should go home,” she said.
He let out a small, miserable huff of a laugh. “That’d be a long walk.”
“Well, we’ll take a taxi,” Joy said, her tone encouraging.
“To Hong Kong?”
“Oh.” She hesitated for a moment, then clapped her hands to her knees and, with decision, got up. “All right, come with us. You’ll get some rest, and tomorrow you can figure things out.”
“I don’t—I don’t rest,” he answered, and to his terror, he yawned, just like an ordinary person.
“Yeah, I can tell. Come on. The thing is I’ll sit here with you all night if necessary, because it was my fault that you fell, and now you can’t think straight, so—but I’d really rather go home because I miss my delicious evening cup of thyme tea, so let’s just go. Please?”
Joy reached out her hand, and Whale took it, half-aware of what he was doing. It was strange and nice to hold someone’s hand without having to distort everything they were.
Whale felt as though he was dying. He hardly noticed the car lights and neon signs that flashed past the trolleybus window against which he was leaning his forehead. The sounds of the night city merged into a lullaby-like humming in his ears. He barely remembered how they had gotten into the buzzing elevator that slid unhurriedly upward until the red dots on the display arranged themselves into 23 and the doors glided open with a ping. He didn’t even resist when Joy steered him to the coach, seated him, and pushed his shoulder down lightly so his head sank into the soft bamboo pillow.
“Breakfast, boys!”
His eyelids were so heavy he thought he would need to expend all the energy left in his lungeyeart if he wanted to see again. Lungeyeart! His eyes flung open at once. His lungeyeart still hadn’t shriveled up; on the contrary, it seemed to have put on some weight overnight. Was this what it was going to be like now? He would have to lie down and switch himself off for a third of a day to restore his energy? That was an unthinkable waste of time. Unacceptable. And that horrible feeling of being about to die—was that what ordinary people meant by “just tired after a rough day”?
Whale couldn’t deny, however, that waking up from his first-ever sleep still felt a little bit incredible, even though he hadn’
t been so lucky as to dream.
He flipped back the multiple plush plaid blankets, sat up, and swung his legs off the couch, his toes meeting the fluffy carpet. This part of the compact studio apartment, separated from the rest of it by a folding screen, unmistakably belonged to Joy. There were shelves all around the draped walls, crammed with well-worn, well-loved books, statuettes, and photographs. Necklaces with wooden pendants hung out of the half-open small velvet boxes.
The room was full of subtle smells: an almond-and-grassy smell of old pages, sweet and smoky aroma of sandalwood incense, fresh and salty scent of sea that saturated the colorful clothes heaped up in a corner. Whale was sure this mixture had a lot to do with his more relaxed, happier mood.
He did feel a lot better today. His lungeyeart was warm; he was not going to die of lack of energy—which meant his kind wasn’t endangered. Things weren’t as bad as he had thought. He would find his kin, whether they were together or not, and they would work out a way to reunite.
Hopeful. He was feeling hopeful and grateful this morning.
“Breakfast,” repeated Joy, who had appeared from behind the screen. She was carrying a bowl, bringing with her another sweet smell that caused an unfamiliar whirling sensation in his stomach.
“What is this?” he asked, when she forced the hot bowl into his hands.
“Um, banana-nut oatmeal with honey, best breakfast ever—and don’t you dare tell me otherwise.”
“I don’t ea—” he began, but the whirling sensation intensified at the sight of the amber-colored treat. “Thank you.”
“Now, that’s the spirit.” Joy winked at him, and she left. Whale could hear Julius mutter, “Go away, happy morning woman,” as she tried to wake him up, too.
Whale chewed his breakfast, the “besteverness” of which he didn’t even think to challenge, since Joy obviously knew better—seeing as he’d never eaten anything before—and his chest filled with still more gratitude toward this girl. Or was it just the warming energy that rose higher and higher inside his lungeyeart with every spoonful he took?
