Strands of Fate

by R F Hurteau

  They were getting closer to the epicenter of the Ross Day festivities. He couldn’t see City Hall yet, but he could hear the indistinct sound of voices being piped through the public speaker system. All around them, great buildings rose up into the sky, behemoths of glass and steel that seemed far too heavy to be able to stand so tall. The carefully tended streets here had no spindly trees with sparse leaves; their path was dotted with well-manicured planters and commons covered in lush green grass and colorful flowers.

  Eli found his gaze lingering on the plants, the same ones that had given him a false sense of hope as a small child. Things couldn’t be that bad. Not if such beauty still existed in the world.

  But it was only a facade.

  More excited voices tore his eyes from the green oasis he’d been studying, drawing them upward toward unseen speakers. The presentations had begun.

  He saw Mabel cringe out of the corner of his eye, knew she was disappointed to have missed the opening statements. He attempted to reign in another tirade on everything that was wrong with the world, but it was hard. He couldn’t help wondering how his own sister could be so taken in, after everything they’d seen and talked about. After everything their family had been forced to endure, still she didn’t get it. It seemed as if Val Int’s promises were honey, drawing the people like flies.

  How was it that Eli was the only one smart enough to see through the deception? How did no one else realize that the honey was poisoned?

  The unintelligible rumble of the speakers soon became strong enough to be heard over the buzzing of the crowd, forming words as they drew closer.

  “...Belenus will be a light in the darkest corners of the earth, enabling us to live and grow in areas we never thought possible!” This statement triggered an exuberant round of applause.

  “Aw,” Mabel pouted, “see? You made us miss the opening presentation!”

  “Who cares about living and growing in new places?” Eli hissed irritably under his breath. “What about all the old places we can’t live and grow in? You know, because they’re either deserts or under water now?”

  “You’re such a spoil-sport,” Mabel whined, cocking an eyebrow at him. “I forgive you, though. They always save the best for last. Let’s go look around!”

  She took him by the hand and pulled him forward.

  For the next few hours, Eli grudgingly allowed himself to be dragged from one stage to the next, watching demonstrations and holding a bag bulging with the free trinkets Mabel was collecting from the booths as they went. City Hall was surrounded by a wide promenade that spanned several miles, and on occasions such as this it was packed to the brim with boastful representatives of all manner of Val Int subsidiary companies hawking their wares.

  More than a few of them flashed a reproachful expression when Mabel approached in her drab corporate orphan attire, but none of them dared to turn her away. They all wanted to put on a show for the masses, let everyone see how they cared about the common man.

  Eli tinkered with the contents of the bag each time Mabel paused to listen to a speaker, trying to distract himself from the inane presentations. There was a tiny vial of pills that claimed to be a nutritionally complete meal replacement. (“A three days’ supply!” she had gushed. “Bet you’ll be wishing for one of my sandwiches after three days of nothing but that, eh?”) and a personal atmospheric controller that went from an innocuous cube that fit in one’s pocket to a wearable amalgamation of wires that attached to various body parts and allowed the user to experience “cool comfort, anytime, anywhere.”

  Mabel beamed at him when she handed him this one.

  “Would you look at that—your wish came true!”

  She immediately set to work on putting one on. She tried to wire Eli up to his but he refused.

  “You do realize that Values International is responsible for the unpredictable weather patterns to begin with? Why should I...”

  “Will you just stop?” she snapped. “Besides, your pride won’t keep you from sweating in this heat. But go ahead and suffer; at least I’ll be comfortable!”

  “I’m just saying,” Eli shrugged, knowing he might regret this decision later but too stubborn to back down, “that of course it’s a marketable item. They made the market!”

  “That’s it,” Mabel crossed her arms over her chest. “Just go home. You’re obviously miserable. I’ll check out the rest by myself.”

  Eli felt a wave of relief wash over him, but was torn between wanting to agree wholeheartedly with this arrangement and wanting to stay to keep an eye on Mabel.

  Then something else caught his attention. A flash of shimmering black, with hints of blue.

  His head whipped around to his right, searching the sky for its source. How had it gotten there? Had it followed them from the wards all the way to the city square? Perhaps he was mistaken...but no, there is was again.

  Eli pointed excitedly.

  “Look! There it is! The crow!”

  Making his way through the oblivious crowd, this time it was Eli’s turn to drag his sister, holding tightly to her wrist so that they wouldn’t be separated.

  It was easy to spot the dark contrast of the crow’s feathers against the pink and white blossoms of the small ornamental trees as it flitted from one to the next with dignified grace.

  With a powerful stroke of its wings, the bird took flight again, disappearing from view as it soared upward and then dove.

  “Come on!”

  Eli forgot himself, forgot where they were, as the thrill of the chase took over.

  Wildlife sightings were few and far between in the residential sectors. It was rare everywhere, but more so where the people lived. There just weren’t enough animals left to be bothered with trying to make a life amongst humanity. Instead they stuck to the wilds, or what remained of them.

  Eli pulled up short. He had shoved past a throng of people and come to the edge of a large semi-circle of onlookers. They were all gazing, awe-struck, up at the platform before them.

  On it, a tall man with a wide smile was holding his arm aloft, the crow perched neatly on his wrist. The banner stretched across the back of the stage proudly proclaimed, “Shift Labs, Preserving the Past by Looking to the Future!”

  “As you can see,” the man was saying in a loud, amiable voice, “there’s room for all creatures in the future Values International has envisioned for us. Through the powers of cloning and genetic preservation, we at Shift Labs have successfully stored DNA from thousands of species once believed gone from the earth forever. Shift Labs has had successful trials reproducing everything from the red fox to the giant panda. As we work with other Values International businesses to construct suitable habitats, we’ll once again have safe, unobtrusive homes for these magnificent beasts so that all of mankind may enjoy them. Several other murders of crows just like this one have been released throughout the areas surrounding Gables to begin establishing themselves as part of our ever-evolving community.”

  It was too much. As the people around him clapped and gasped with amazement, Eli gave a derisive laugh.

  Mabel shot him a warning glance, too late. The man onstage had caught sight of his scowl, and turned his wide, fake grin toward Eli.

  “What’s this, now?” His voice took on a tone of surprise. “An unsatisfied consumer? Is it that perhaps you feel that the old flora and fauna have no place in the new world? Because I assure you, the colonies would benefit from—”

  “The colonies would benefit from Values International leaving us the hell alone!”

  The people around him fell silent, staring at him with shock and apprehension.

  “We wouldn’t need your stupid laboratory to clone extinct species if they hadn’t gone extinct to begin with,” he continued, unconcerned with those around him as his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

  Everyone but Mabel had taken several steps back from him, not wishing to associate themselves with such nonsense.

  “It’s Val Int’s fa
ult,” Eli railed, undeterred. “All of this. Why don’t you understand that? Why doesn’t anybody understand?”

  “Come on, Eli,” Mabel begged in a strained, quiet voice. “This isn’t the time for—”

  But Eli continued, shaking his arm free of her grasp so that he could whirl on the crowd.

  “Values International keeps offering us solutions to problems we wouldn’t even have if it weren’t for them! Are you all so blind?”

  “Eli, stop. Please.”

  It was the fear in Mabel’s voice that gave Eli pause.

  He felt his anger waning, drawn back into the little bottle in his gut that usually remained corked.

  He looked around at the appalled faces, and then back up at the stage. The man still held the crow and still wore his sickly-sweet smile, but his eyes now showed a hint of condescending pity.

  Eli scowled again, then turned his back on the stage.

  “Come on.”

  The crowd parted as he walked, as if they were afraid to touch him. How long before Val Int came up with a brilliant treatment to cure nonconformists?

  Oh wait, they had. It was called prison.

  Mabel followed without argument, taking quick steps to keep up with his longer stride.

  Neither spoke on the train, but when they reached the apartment Mabel collapsed heavily onto the sofa, sinking deep into the familiar beige cushions and burying her face in her hands.

  “Eli,” she began.

  “I know, I know!”

  He’d spent the whole ride home trying to psych himself into a state of contriteness, to no avail. “I’m sorry, alright? I just...it makes me so mad. I snapped.”

  “You could get in a lot of trouble. You could get mom and dad in trouble. What do you think will become of us, if they lose their jobs because their son is some sort of...insurgent?”

  Eli knew she was right. She was always right.

  He frowned, perching himself on the arm of the chair across from her.

  “It won’t happen again, Mabe. Okay? I just...it makes me so furious. It’s like no one gets it at all. No one cares!”

  “You aren’t going to be able to make them care all by yourself.”

  Mabel sniffed. Then she let out a sigh, her expression much more sincere then Eli’s own. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have made you come today. I know how you get. I should have known something there could trigger you. You can’t help it—you’re a passionate guy.”

  This made Eli chuckle, and Mabel gave a hesitant smile in reply.

  “I think most of us are,” Eli said conspiratorially. “Insurgents, I mean.”

  He puffed up his chest a bit, trying to make himself look more impressive. “In other news, fifteen-year-old insurgent with a passion for the truth saves world...” He mimicked one of the stuffy reporters from the radio.

  His impression was cut short by a pillow being thrown in his face. It fell away, landing on the floor with a soft plop.

  “Knock it off,” Mabel chided him. She yawned, stretching, then glanced out the window. “I’m going to bed,” she announced. “I’m beat.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  It was still quite early. The Ross Day extravaganza would still be going strong long after sunset, many of the revelers trickling back to their homes only hours before dawn. Still, it seemed like a good idea to cut his losses.

  “You wanna eat first, though?”

  Mabel raised her eyebrow, turned around and riffled through the bag on the sofa. Turning back to Eli, she tossed him the tiny vial of pills and winked.

  “Bon appetit.”

  Then she disappeared up the stairs.

  Eli eyed the pills with suspicion. He turned them over and over in his hand, reading the miniscule printing on the vial. Serendipity Agrotech, it read. A division of Values International.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” he muttered to no one in particular, unscrewing the cap and popping one of the tasteless blue capsules into his mouth. “The whole damn world’s a division of Values International.”

  Sleep proved elusive that night.

  The sun had faded but the streetlights strained against the window shades, pooling around the edges of the frame and burning their bright outline into his vision.

  Eli pictured the crow sitting on his windowsill, but the feeling of comfort it instilled vanished as he remembered the man on stage.

  It made him sick to think about that majestic creature on the arm of that Val Int shill. Eli had nothing against cloning technology; he didn’t hold it against the crows that they had been born in a lab.

  But he did hold it against Val Int that such a thing was even necessary.

  Why does it have to be this way? he thought bitterly. Why do they make us celebrate the devastation of our world? It’s like a sick joke. And why don’t more people care?

  Yet there didn’t seem much hope of convincing anyone else when he could not even convince his own twin.

  Mabel, sweet and spirited though she was, didn’t truly understand. She tried, she did try. She sympathized with his anguish.

  But he didn’t want sympathy. He wanted justice.

  They’d been born into a world defiled by corporate greed. Already past the point of no return.

  It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t right.

  Eli fell into a fitful sleep, the Shift Labs representative with his eerie smile trailing him into his dreams.

  Two

  The Aftermath

  “SWEET Evenmire, there’s blood everywhere!”

  “If you can’t say anything helpful, Tess, just be quiet and clear that table! Hurry, now.”

  There was a rustling of papers and glass being shoved aside, something falling to the floor, the sound of shattering. Gavin felt himself being lifted and placed on the hard surface of the table.

  “Put him down. Gently! Gently. There we are. Just hang on my friend, we’ve got you.”

  “Hold him steady,” Onyx barked, ordering people around like a commanding officer in the heat of battle. “Get those dressings off, I need to see what we’re working with. Jaylen, what are you doing? No, there’s no time to wait for a fire. Bring me that bottle, the black powder, on the pantry.”

  Someone shoved something hard and smooth between his teeth.

  “Bite down,” a grim female voice commanded. “This is going to hurt.”

  Someone was cutting Gavin’s bandages away. He heard the sound of a jar opening, then felt something coarse being poured over the long gash across his stomach, sparking fresh pain.

  He managed to open his eyes for a brief moment, looking down long enough to see a sudden flash of fire erupt across his abdomen before he squeezed them shut again, his agonized scream barely muffled by the stick in his mouth.

  Back arching, Gavin tried in desperation to reach out, to beat at the flames; he felt more hands grabbing hold of his arms, struggling to keep them pinned at his sides.

  A few seconds later something cool and damp was thrown over him, snuffing out the fire with a hiss. For several long moments, there was tense silence. The only sound was that of Gavin’s labored breathing punctuated by quiet moans.

  Bile rose in his throat and he leaned to the right, the room spinning violently around him as he vomited onto the floor. Wiping his mouth, he lay back again and looked up into the face that loomed over him, studying him with concern.

  Onyx spoke in a low voice, as if afraid of the answer her question might receive. “How are you feeling, my friend?”

  Despite the pain, Gavin fought to focus on her. The room still swam, and he felt as though he were swaying in a hammock.

  “You just set me on fire.”

  She gave him a wicked smile in response, her relief evident.

  “I cauterized your wound,” she corrected. “And I put it out, didn’t I?”

  He tried to look down, to see how bad it was, but the simple act of pulling his elbows back and raising his head brought a fresh wave of dizziness.
<
br />   “Easy,” Onyx cautioned, steadying him with both hands. “Just lay still a while. You lost a lot of blood. I wasn’t sure we’d make it back in time to save you. Still, it could have been worse.”

  Gavin was grimacing up at the ceiling. Flashes of memory, of the battle at the Evenmire, competed with the agony that engulfed his midsection.

  “Feels pretty lousy.”

  “Well, nothing vital was damaged. So, there’s that.”

  “There’s that.”

  Onyx turned to the others in the room, all of whom looked on with anxious expressions. “What are you all standing around for? He needs rest and quiet. And we still have work to do. Tess, you and your father go find a place to hide that Floater. The last thing we need is to get caught with that thing parked outside.”

  “Right.” Tess gave a solemn nod. Onyx wheeled on another of the onlookers.

  “And you, Wendell. Organize a watch on Gavin’s house. If anyone comes looking for him, I need to be the first to know.”

  “Of course. Consider it done.”

  The crowd of villagers filed out of the house. A few stragglers glanced back at Gavin with a mixture of curiosity and concern. He watched them go, his eyes drawn from their faces to their feet, each avoiding the trail of blood that led from the door to his current resting place.

  Onyx was watching him intently and followed his gaze, nodding.

  “Yes, you did a number on this place. Look, even my poor plant!” she exclaimed, stooping to scoop dirt back into the pot holding the little succulent with the purple flowers.

  She stood back up, one hand holding the remains of the planter, the other resting on her hip. She turned and placed it on a nearby chair. Then she used a cool damp cloth to wipe the perspiration from his face.

  “No matter.” Her voice was high, forced. “I’ll clean it later. As for you, my friend, our biggest worry now is infection. You’ll need to stay here for a while, so that I can keep an eye on you.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Will I have to sleep on the table?”

  She gave a choked laugh which abruptly turned into sobs. Gavin looked at her in alarm, rising on one elbow, but she put her hand to her mouth and shook her head.