by Rowan Massey
He smiled, and I considered making him smile an accomplishment. He leaned close to put his cheek against mine.
“You have your fielders?” he asked into my ear, and I nodded. “Go dance,” he said. “I’ll watch you before I have to leave. I’ll see if I can hear what you’re dancing to.”
I grinned and bit his neck. He pulled away and took a step back. I saw he was trying not to smile, but he also looked upset. We looked at each other a couple seconds before he turned and went to do his job next to Rydel.
I broke into a jog for a few yards, feeling like I might jog into the ground, then walked again, then jogged again, then pulled the chain out of my shirt and felt the metal between my fingers and thumb. Nando was right. I didn’t need to worry about getting jumped out on the field. But I didn’t think I needed to worry as much about getting jumped anywhere anymore. Everyone knew I was working with the doc, and now they knew I was Nando’s. I was safer than I’d ever been.
I found Spitz and Fiona hugging and scanning the crowd for me. I ran up to them with my arms wide and crashed into them. They complained, and laughed, and pushed me off.
“Notice anything new?” I asked, and played with the necklace.
“Okay,” Fiona looked at me funny. “I didn’t know you were the type to wear a chain, for starters.”
“Nando gave it to me. Shut up.” I pushed it back into my shirt because he was right, I might forget when I left. Better safe than sorry.
I gave Spitz Doc’s fielders, and he held the baggie out, trying to see them in the dark.
“They look funny,” he said. “Not like the usual stuff. Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah,” I said, and took the baggy from him, inspecting the pills for myself. They were pale blue and didn’t have any markings. “Doc cooked these for research. That’s why they look funny.”
He shrugged and held a hand out. Fiona held her hand out too, and it was shaking. I put the fielder in her hand and put my hand around her curled fingers.
“It’s gonna feel like the easiest thing you’ve ever done,” Spitz told her.
“I know,” she smiled and nodded. Her hair was kind of a mess. It was usually fixed up nice, but she wasn’t even wearing barrettes or braids. Her eyes were just slightly too wide. “I can’t believe I—I’m finally going to be one of you guys. I should have done this a long time ago. This is the only thing that makes people happy. I just need to be happy.”
Spitz pulled her into a quick kiss. “We’ll be the three happiest people in the world,” he said.
“Happiest and best dancers,” I said.
We all held our pills out in our palms and took them in unison, making a whole thing of it for Fiona. We chewed and grinned at each other.
Spitz took a razor out of his pocket and held it up wordlessly.
“I don’t think we’ll need it,” I said. “Doc’s got rid of the crawls. Let’s get into the middle.”
We walked through the jerking and flowing limbs, past the bright lights that were still piercing my sight, and stopped next to a giant garbage pile that would be lit on fire soon because it was getting pretty large.
Spitz grabbed Fiona’s jacket sleeve, and mine, and pulled us together until we were all touching foreheads.
“Maybe if we try hard enough,” Fiona said, “we can all hear the same music and go to the same place.”
The earth and everything that had ever happened there was nothing to me. I couldn’t even see it anymore, I was far out in the galaxy, and it had taken me a million years to get there. There were so many planets and people to choose from, to learn from, to talk and laugh with, to join. I went from one to the next for tens of millions of years, becoming anything and anyone I wanted to be. I spent a lifetime in cold and ice-covered oceans, and went on to live in orbit around a yellow planet that kicked up enough green dust for me to live off of. Next, a civilization on the verge of leaving its mother solar system. I fought their war. I raised their children. And the children fought when I couldn’t. Only wandering the galaxy felt good after that trauma. I saw planets collide, stars die, and got dangerously close to a black hole. I was a lone adventurer. There was only a far-off idea of things like being Wally. Had I started off human, or had it just been another stop on my tour of the galaxy? I decided to keep on going. Whatever I was, I wanted to go as far as possible. Know as many lives as the universe could provide.
“Stop it! Let go of her!”
A human face was in my hands, and she was bloody, dead, upside-down. I thought I was hovering over her, but a small stone grinding against my knee told me I was kneeling. I was trying to open her eyes but they were already open. She was already looking up at the sky, so I did too. I saw a sad goodbye up there, but I was glad that we had met, the galaxy and me.
“Let go, Wally. Can you do that?” Doc’s voice in my ear.
“Hey! I missed you!” A grin broke over the stiff, cold skin of my wet face. I must have gotten her blood on my own face. I stood up and tried to hug Doc, but he grabbed my arms and pushed me away, a look on his face like I was covered in shit.
“Put your hands down. I’m taking you to the volunteer station.”
I did as I was told. The lights weren’t bothering me anymore, and I felt like I’d just gotten a great nap, not danced for hours. Doc placed a hand behind my neck and pushed me forward and toward the station. When we got there, he took out a big white jug and poured the contents into a bucket half-full of water. He pushed his sleeves up and dipped a rag into it. The smell was making me gag, but I didn’t whine about it. I held out my arms to let him wipe them off, but he went for my face first. Blood came away on the rag.
“Did I cut up my head?” I asked, confused about where all the blood had come from, but Doc just sighed and cleaned my face, and dug the rag into all my piercings until I started to laugh at him because he was going overboard. He moved on to my arms, still frowning, and scrubbed them pink, rinsed them with fresh water, then dried me off, as if I couldn’t do that part myself. I was just glad to see him again. I was still sort of in a different world—one very close but still separate from the usual reality.
When Doc was done, he led me to the back of the supply van and had me lean against the hood. But I really wasn’t tired. He looked at me with his head pushed forward and a little to the side, trying to find something in my expression.
“How was your trip?” he asked, and I laughed a nice, easy laugh.
“I can tell it was good,” he said, “but can you describe it for me?”
“It’s a long story. I went to really…important places.” I put a hand over my heart. I would never forget the people I’d lived with, sacrificed with. “You wouldn’t believe what’s out there. I had some really good lives. I’ve lived so long, Doc. Why do people think that immortality would make people bored and mean like vampires? I love it. I just want everyone to do it. Go out there and live and live…”
He was nodding, but I could tell he was just humoring me. His eyes weren’t reacting to what I was trying to say.
“That sounds a little different,” he said. “Did it seem to last longer?”
“Yes! Yes, it really did!”
“What about the crawls?”
“It was too fast for the crawls. Instant. But…I don’t know. I think I had withdrawals before taking it.”
He didn’t seem surprised. “How was the music?”
I opened my mouth but didn’t know how to answer. I’d heard strange types of music on a dozen planets, but that wasn’t what he was talking about. I thought about it, and there had been no music that came from my mind. It had come from musicians, and devices, and bodies, just like on earth. That didn’t count.
“No music,” I said. “Just living.”
“You were standing still most of the time.”
“What?” I felt my body lean away from him. He’d taken the crawls, but had he taken the music too? What would the field be without the dancing?
“Are you feeling groun
ded yet?” he asked. He started writing on his clipboard.
“It’s no good to take away the music, Doc. That’s too important.” I ran my hands over my face. Things were really changing on the field. What was Doc doing to us?
“Don’t worry about that,” he crossed his arms and turned away to look at the crowd. “Do you know Nando’s boss has him and Rydel informing on me?”
“Informing?”
“Ratting me out. I should have had you three take the fielders in my back garden. Everyone saw you standing still and staring at the sky. Three hours.”
I turned to look behind me. I spotted Spitz and Fiona. They were standing with heads tilted back and eyes…eyes shut? They swayed a little, swung their hands here and there, but gently. They were still standing next to each other. Around them, several people had cut their faces. The crawls were back in Nando and Rydel’s batch?
“Did you give them an old batch?” I asked, pointing.
“No, they wanted to carry on the tradition. No one had the crawls.”
I nodded, feeling both high from my amazing experiences, and worried about the world in front of me.
“I don’t know who that girl was,” I said. “The dead one.”
“You were trying to sing that song and you couldn’t manage it. It must have been like sleepwalking.” He rubbed at his thick beard. He looked beat but determined. “Tell me everything about your trip while we wait for those two.”
Instead of telling him, I tried to sing a song from one of the cultures I’d been part of. It didn’t work with my vocal chords, and Doc started checking my vitals.
“Okay, okay,” I said, “I’m fine. I’ll tell it the boring way.” And I did. He gave me half his attention but kept his eyes on the crowd. He saw someone and stood straighter, grabbed his clipboard, and went after her. He was just asking his questions. I looked back to Spitz and Fiona. I didn’t like seeing them like that. Giving them Doc’s obviously freaky batch hadn’t been a good choice. What if Fiona had a weird reaction since it was her first time? Was Doc being careless with us?
I went to the other side of the van and squatted down with my back against a wheel, pack in my arms. I felt hidden there because the van blocked the light. I missed the universe, even thought I knew I’d be back in a day. But I looked forward to Spitz’s big hug. It would be right before a big hug from Fiona. I’d missed them in a way, even though they had seemed like a dream.
The doc was slowly walking back towards me, with his face close to the clipboard.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “you three are my absolute priority tonight.”
“Have you seen Nando?” I asked.
“I saw them leave a while ago. How much did he tell you about what’s happening?”
“Nothing really. He’s nervous about a gang thing.”
Doc groaned and sighed as he lowered himself down and sat next to me, his old guy knees cracking.
“Don’t try to come to work in the morning if things seem sketchy on the streets.” He took a couple of packaged cookies from his jacket pocket and gave me one. I ripped into it, and the first bite was amazing. It had a crazy amount of chocolate in it. I could tell it had vitamins added, but it was still good.
“Go toward the east tonight, not out towards the border. There are enough empty houses there. You’ll find a safe spot.”
I leaned against his shoulder just a little, not because I was tired, but because I wanted to be friends. I’d made friends so easily everywhere in the Milky Way. Why not on earth too?
“Whatever you say, boss man,” I said.
“I’m serious, Wally. The city won’t be safe tonight. Maybe not tomorrow either. It depends on what happens. Promise me you’ll go as far in that direction as humanly possible. At least as far as Red House if you’re too tired. Stay in an empty house, and call me if you need food and water.”
“What’s going on? What’s the big deal?” He’d gotten my attention.
“The Dread Reds have intel that Ten Block is going to try taking over the docks down by the river where the warehouse is. Everyone there has evacuated. A lot of product goes to and from the docks, so it’s a prime target.”
“Will it be dangerous?”
He twisted to look at me as if I were an little kid. “Wally, this will be a battle complete with assault weapons, explosives, armored vehicles…it’s going to be very bad tonight. This is part of a war, in a way.”
We were quiet for a while, listening to the crowd. I looked up, and there was wind in the bare trees. I closed my eyes to feel it on my eyelids. Human skin was insanely different from the last skin I’d had just before coming back.
“Do you remember telling me your birthday?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Look at the date on your phone. You should pay attention to dates now that you’re a working stiff.”
I took the phone out, hit the button on the side so it would show the time and date, and he was right. I was sixteen.
“Cool,” I said. “I still think it’s possible I’m a billion years old now though.”
“Hopefully that will wear off.”
“Hopefully not. I don’t want to lose all my memories. That’s a massive amount of life I lived out there. I want to keep it fresh in my mind.” I put the phone back in my pocket and smiled big when I thought of something. “I got Fiona for my birthday. And Nando. Wow, sixteenth birthdays are big.”
“Nando? How so?” he asked.
My thumb hooked the chain, and I pulled it out to show it off.
“He gave you that? Maybe someone told him it was your birthday.”
“I don’t think so. It’s just fate and shit.” I grinned.
He chuckled. “I suppose so. Look. Spitz is with us.”
Spitz was staring wide-eyed at Fiona, who hadn’t come out of it yet. I hurried to them.
“Spizzy, it’s okay,” I told him, and pulled him in for our hug. “Doc gave us his shitty batch and none of us danced. And we closed our eyes.”
Spitz was squeezing me so hard it was getting uncomfortable.
“It was gigantic. I was gigantic,” he said. “But Walls, she looks weird.”
Doc, who was behind Spitz, turned him around so he could check his vitals and stare at his pupils and all that.
“Was anything different?” Doc asked.
“It lasted a long time. Right? Is this the same night?” He smiled and looked around in wonder.
“It was around three hours.”
“You’re kidding!” Spitz laughed, high pitched and giddy. He looked over his shoulder at me, and I shrugged. He laughed some more.
“Wow, that’s a crazy batch,” he said. “But kind of…too different. I think I time traveled. I feel so little now.”
Fiona was staring at us with her head tilted to the side. “Guys?”
Spitz hurried to give her a hug and kiss, and I hugged them both from the side.
“See why we hug every night?” I said.
“Oh my god. Fuck. Yeah, it’s a long time to be away! I missed you guys, but I was…fuck. I was having fun!”
Nobody told her that we weren’t usually away for that long. We could explain it later. I let them go so they could kiss and all, and I wandered back over to the doc, who was watching us.
“Can I ask you a sensitive question without you getting irritated?” he asked quietly. I thought about it for a second and gave him a nod. “Did anyone have to convince her to become a fielder, or did she ask about it on her own?”
“Her dad threw her out of her house, remember? She’s homeless. What else was she going to do? She’d be miserable without fielders.” I wasn’t irritated, I just thought it was a dumb question.
“Who brought it up? Her, or Spitz, or you, or someone else?”
I waved my hand. “She didn’t have to tell us. It wasn’t like that.”
“They knew what I wanted before I did,” Fiona interrupted. They’d walked over to us and overheard. “I hadn’t thought that far ah
ead yet because I was ready to fucking slit my wrists. Spitz told me he’d make sure I could do it tonight. God, I’m so glad. I thought I was going to feel that way forever, but it was eons ago. And now, you know…I can know bad shit without feeling like a wanna die.”
“Yeah.” Spitz rubbed her shoulders, and she put a hand on his. “I told you it’s better. So much fucking better.”
“I see what you mean now. I get to do this every night! Just doing it once is like having a whole life of perfection.” She smiled wide. Spitz hugged her from behind and kissed her face.
“Do you mind telling me about your trip?” Doc asked.
“I went to an ocean,” she said, looking up at the sky, “but it was as big as all the planets and the sun put together. I just swam and found all kinds of things. Lots of ocean people. And I know it sounds fucking loony, but I met a lot of aliens who told me about the places they were from. And spirits. The whole time, I didn’t have a body. Sometimes, I had other bodies or other people’s bodies…but they were just machines I was using.” She looked all around, like she’d never seen the field before. “It was a lot of color too. Everything was kind of like that rainbow you see in car oil on the street. Colors and lights were more like ropes that you could touch and tie in knots. I mean, for a while it was…”
Doc was nodding slowly and wrote a few words down.
“Mine was a lot like that,” Spitz said. “Aliens and shit.”
“How was the music?” Doc asked.
Spitz and Fiona looked at each other with surprise.
“There wasn’t any in mine,” Spitz said, and gave me a worried look. “Not like the usual. Just ordinary music.”
“Yeah, me too.” Fiona said and looked at us for answers, but we didn’t have them.
“Fucking weird batch,” I said, and I gave Doc a careful look. He had kind of let me down, having me give it to my friends like that, even if the trip had been mind-blowing for all of us. But when he lifted his head and looked at me, I turned my face away and rubbed at my neck.
“Do you all feel physically well? Anything mentally alarming?” Doc asked.
The three of us shook our heads.
“I feel rested up,” I said.
