by K A Riley
Manthy stands in the doorway of the lab, quietly looking at Caldwell through the tops of her eyes until he finally gives her his full assurance that it’s okay.
“She can be a little odd,” I tell Caldwell after she’s disappeared back the way we came. In my own ears, it sounds more like an apology than an explanation.
“She’s amazing,” he gushes. “Does she know what she is?”
“Does she know what who is?”
“What she is.”
“Why? What is she?”
“She’s a miracle of human evolution.”
“Manthy? She’s got an ability.”
“I know. I know about you from Granden and the Major. But I never knew the extent. Never met one of you in real life.”
“What extent? And why can’t we get a straight answer out of anyone?”
I frown at Caldwell’s chuckle, but he promises he’s not teasing me. “You can’t get a straight answer because no one has one. I’ve probably got more experience working with the Modifieds than anyone, and even I don’t know what motivated them in the first place or what makes them tick today.”
“I’m not a Modified.”
“That’s true. You’re an Emergent. You didn’t choose to be who you are. But then again, none of us did. I didn’t choose to be short. Or bald. Or allergic to eggs.” He taps his temple with his chubby finger. “I also didn’t choose to be able to visualize the intricate details of pretty much any complex machine, even the ones we call ‘human beings.’ But I choose to focus on what I can do instead of what I can’t do.”
“It sounds like a pretty easy choice to make.”
“Don’t be too sure. Do you have any idea how many people, when given the choice between pursuing their strengths or their weaknesses, choose the latter? Selfishness is a weakness. So are pride, ignorance, narcissism, racism, sexism, ageism, ableism. And yet countless people follow those impulses at the expense of the real strengths—honesty, generosity, curiosity, selflessness—they’ve been conditioned to repress.”
Caldwell takes off his glasses and rubs the lenses with the corner of his white lab coat. He looks around at his well-stocked lab and sighs.
“We better get back upstairs,” I say after a pause. “Long day ahead of us and all.”
“Yes. We can’t have our heroic rebels falling asleep on the battlefield.” He grunts as he heaves himself out of his mag-chair, and I follow him out of his lab and through the adjacent rooms. He stops as we walk through the room with the Modifieds standing along its perimeter with the blue light that had been glowing around its edges. Only now the blue light has turned a shimmering silvery-yellow in most places. Caldwell stops in his tracks and gestures with a sweep of his hand at the lights along the wall. “How’d that—?”
“What is it?” I ask.
“The S.A.N.S. system. Sorry. It’s the name of the diagnostic system: Synaptic Autogenetic Neuro Synthesis. The light running around the room. It’s a spectral systems monitor. Keeps track of what the Modifieds need and how they’re doing. Everything from identifying neuron depletion to molecular density stress-levels in their purely mechanical parts. Since most of them can’t really communicate what they’re feeling and because their neurology is so intertwined with their nano-tech, the system also helps register their pain levels. Blue indicates their usual pain level. It’s pretty high. That’s what it’s almost always at, unfortunately. Green means no pain or limited pain. Yellow, like this, actually indicates an experience of pleasure. Peace even.”
“So it’s good that most of it’s yellow now, right?”
“It’s amazing. Only…”
“What?”
“Well, it’s never been yellow before.”
Arriving back at the door to the main room, Caldwell gives Manthy an odd look, but he doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t seem to notice and instead tugs me by the arm and starts heading down the hallway toward the stairs.
I call out “Goodnight” back to Caldwell, and he raises his hand in a kind of stunned wave.
“I know how good you are with tech,” I whisper into the dark as Manthy and I trudge on tired legs back up the two flights to the fourth floor Dorm. “But on second thought, I think maybe your super power is being kind to people who need kindness,” I say to her back.
“Being kind to people in need shouldn’t require a second thought,” she mumbles without turning around.
11
When we get to our floor, we see the silhouette way down the hall of someone standing just outside our bedroom door. Looking at each other for a second, Manthy and I walk the length of the dead-quiet hallway until the dark figure comes into focus.
“What are you doing up?” I ask Brohn.
“Can’t sleep,” he says, leaning, arms crossed, against the wall just outside of our dorm room. He covers a yawn with his hand. “You?”
“No.”
“Hi, Brohn,” Manthy says as she nudges past him and into our room without making eye contact.
“What’s with her?”
“Couldn’t sleep. I kept her company.”
“Where’d the two of you just come from?”
“Downstairs.”
Thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, Brohn looks surprised and suddenly awake. He looks up at the gentle purple glow of the strip-lights running along the walls of the empty hallway. “You visited the Modifieds?”
“Yes.”
“How are things down there?”
“Sad,” I say. “But also…revealing. They’re people. Human beings. They have feelings, fears, pain, everything. It’s like the world is too small and restrictive to accommodate them, but we’ve somehow made that their fault instead of ours.”
Brohn opens his mouth like he’s going to ask me to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead, he leans back against the wall and crosses his arms again. Our voices are quiet, just above a whisper. “Worried?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He nods and looks down the empty hallway to the left and to the right. “We’ve lived through a lot.”
“True. But nothing quite like this. Not with this much at stake. In the Processor, if we failed, whatever consequences there were happened to us alone. Here, if we fail, it could mean slavery, poverty, the death of thousands. According to your sister, it could also mean the death of an entire way of life.”
Brohn looks down at his boots. “I really wish she were exaggerating.”
“But she’s not.”
“No. She’s not.” Brohn looks up at me, and I’m surprised to see a coy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Take a walk?”
“What?”
“I was about to sneak out for a walk. Since you’re already up and about anyway, I thought maybe you’d like to join me while I head upstairs to make sure everything’s set up for the next round of training.”
“What about sleep?”
“We can sleep after we’ve saved the world.”
“You never stop working, do you?” I ask in a whispery laugh.
Brohn eases himself away from the wall and extends a hand out to me. “I never stop thinking about you,” he says in a voice so quiet I have to perform a double-check in my head to make sure I heard him right.
I take Brohn’s hand. His fingers curl around mine, and he gives a tender squeeze. With a finger to his lips, he leads me down the corridor back the way Manthy and I just came.
Under the gentle purple glow, we walk to the door at the end of the hallway. Brohn leads me through and up the stairs to the fifth floor where he and Cardyn have been working so hard with Granden these last couple of days. Our footsteps sound hollow against the concrete steps of the wide staircase.
Brohn tells me how Cardyn has really thrown himself into his role as a trainer. I’m proud of Card for that, and I’m happy he’s happy. But I miss him. Growing up in the Valta, Cardyn was my go-to guy, my best friend who was always magically there when I needed him. Other than the time I spent alone or with Render, Cardyn mad
e up a big chunk of my very limited social life. I know we’ve only been apart for a couple of days here in the Style, that we’re only two floors away from each other at any given time during the day, and that we still have a few hours together at night. But it’s more distance than I’m used to.
I’ll give him credit, though. Brohn, too. The fifth floor looks incredible. It’s even more set up than before with long tables full of weapons and other gear lining the wide hallway. I recognize a lot of the weapons from my own training: a row of Magpul FMG-9s, FN F2020 Assault Rifles, Sig Sauers. There’s even an older version of the sniper-rifle that Kella got so good at so fast during our time in the Processor. Boxes of ammo are labeled and lined up tidily on a long table between two open doorways. I peek inside another open doorway to find a fully-furnished boxing and martial arts studio complete with blue mats, hanging heavy bags, jump-ropes, and even a mu ren zhuang, one of the wooden dummies I remember so well from our Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do training in the Processor. I’m startled for a second by a glint of light and a hint of movement on the far wall of the dark room until I realize it’s just my reflection in a bank of mirrors the guys have set up. Brohn laughs when he sees me jump, and I give him a playful whack on the bicep with the back of my hand.
Leading me from room to room, Brohn finally stops at the end of the long hallway. This is the room directly above the Mess Hall where we eat. Pushing the door open, he shows me where they’ve been doing target-practice with bullet-ridden disks of nano-plasticine set up at the far end of the long room. It’s pretty dark in here with only a thin courtesy light-strip casting a misty purple glow into the expansive space.
“It’s bigger than I thought it’d be,” I say as I take in the cathedral ceilings and look down the length of the long room into the darkness at the far end.
“I think it used to be two or maybe even three conference rooms or maybe something they converted into a lecture hall,” Brohn says, pointing up to a long metal rail that must have once held a floor-to-ceiling divider of some kind. “It’s still not a ton of space, but it’s enough to get this firing range set up. Since we can’t very well practice outside, this is the next best thing.”
“And how are they doing? Any Kella-level marksmen in the bunch?”
“Nothing quite like that. But they’re coming along,” Brohn assures me, although from here, squinting into the distance, it doesn’t look like the bullseyes on the targets have seen much action. “I wonder how she’s doing. Kella, I mean.”
“I’m sure she’s fine. Probably running Adric and Celia’s whole operation by now.”
Brohn and I share a chuckle over the very real possibility that Kella may currently be out there as the leader of a band of forest-dwelling orphans. She was always talented in so many ways. To see her fall apart so completely after Karmine’s death left me worried about her ability to survive at all, let alone up in the mountains and on the run. But I have to give her credit. No matter how weak or sad she got, she never once gave up during our time on the road.
Still thinking fondly about the best dead-eye shot in our Cohort, I walk over to the bank of windows on the far side of the room. They’ve been covered over with some kind of shimmering black, rubbery-looking tarp that Brohn explains are noise and light-reducers. “We’re five floors up, but there are some tall buildings around here, and Granden wants to make sure we stay as invisible as possible.”
“I can see why. Last thing we need is for the neighbors to hear gunfire and get the local police or worse, the Patriot Army, involved.”
“Exactly. According to Wisp, there’s no back-up plan. No second band of Insubordinates waiting in the wings. If we’re discovered here, that’s the end of the entire operation.”
Doubling back along the side of the room, I push aside some of the handguns and bins of ammo and hop up onto the big table near the door where we first came in.
Brohn walks over to stand in front of me with my legs on either side of his hips. I look up at him through the tops of my eyes. I remember when we were the same height. On November first about five years ago, we were all gathered in the clearing at the top of the road watching the newest Cohort getting taken away from the Valta by the Recruiters. The next year, we were all in the same clearing watching the next Cohort disappear down the road in the Recruiters’ trucks, only this time, Brohn was a full head taller than me. Today, looking powerful from this angle, he towers over me. The scruff on his jawline and the bulge of muscles in his shoulders and rippling twist of tendons in his forearms are a world away from the slender, ropey-muscled boy I knew growing up.
With all my reminiscing about the past and anxiety about the future, I completely forgot there’s a present right here in front of me.
Brohn leans in to kiss me, and the boy he once was disappears completely, leaving me alone in this dark and quiet room with this tall, confident, and authoritative man.
I return Brohn’s kiss and sling my arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
Last night, I connected with Render without completing the scanning process on my tattoos. It felt strange. This feels like that, like Brohn and I are somehow more complete once we’ve surrendered a part of ourselves to each other.
I’ve had a lot of strange sensations these past few days: fear, hope, and everything in between. I’ve met the Modifieds, and I’ve felt their pain and admired their courage. I’ve soared through the skies with Render. Or is it as Render? Or is it both? Either way, I’ve experienced the terror and the thrill of living in two worlds at once. So many odd and unexpected moments. And now, this. I’m safe in the arms of someone I’ve known nearly all my life but hardly talked to until it was nearly too late, and now we’re getting ready to risk our lives to save our world.
It occurs to me, as Brohn kisses me again, that just because something is strange doesn’t mean it’s not perfect.
12
When Brohn and I eventually tip-toe back into our room, the others are still in a deep sleep even as slivers of pinkish morning light start to appear at the corners of the shaded windows.
I’m feeling giggly and guilty but also oddly energized. Far more than I should be at this hour and without any sleep.
Brohn and I ease into our beds with the sound of Rain’s and Manthy’s gentle breathing and Cardyn’s chainsaw snoring filling the room around us.
With our heads adjacent in the center of our spoked-wheel pattern of beds, Brohn and I don’t even bother to sleep. We wouldn’t get much anyway before it was time to get up. Instead, we lie there for the few minutes of the night we have left, holding hands across the space between us, lying on our sides, and occasionally looking into each other’s eyes and smiling. I’m torn in a dozen different directions. Part of me wants to leap over and curl up in Brohn’s bed with him. Part of me wants to step up the timetable and conduct our raid of the Armory right now.
In the end, I’m shaken from my dilemma by Rain who is the first one to start stirring. I’ve already resigned myself to a long day of being tired. After spending the first half of the night downstairs with Manthy and the Modifieds and the second half upstairs with Brohn, I should definitely be wiped out. But thinking about it all seems to have given me a second wind. I’m not sure how long it’ll last, but I vow to take full advantage of the energy I have while I still have it.
After showers and a quick breakfast in the Mess Hall among some of the other early risers, the five of us make our way down to the Intel Room. As we walk downstairs, I’m filled with a renewed sense of purpose and belonging. It’s a familiar scene: Brohn leading the way followed closely by Rain with me and Cardyn just behind her, and Manthy, as she’s done so often, bringing up the rear. The five of us haven’t really been together like this in a few days. Walking through the fourth-floor hallway door and down to the Intel Room feels great and right and like this is exactly the way it should be. This is our line of soldiers, our five-person army of Emergents. Our Conspiracy. If we still had Kella, Karmine, and Terk with us, and
if we weren’t all about to face almost-certain death in a few days, it’d be yet another almost perfect moment.
But the reality of our situation comes flooding back as we enter the Intel Room single-file to find Wisp and Granden already hard at work, coordinating intel and battle plans with Olivia. Olivia rotates in her chair to offer us a welcoming smile and a surreal wave of the dozens of animated tendrils curling and twisting from the ends of her wrists.
For her part, Wisp offers us a cursory greeting before rattling off our instructions for the day.
“Things are going about as well as expected,” she informs us from the table near Olivia where she’s busy flicking through the scrolling text and lines of code of a neon-red holo-display. “But we’re getting close to Friday, and there are still some pieces we need to put into place. Granden tells me training is going well.”
Brohn and Card assure her it’s going as well as can be expected. Wisp looks up and gives them both a curt nod of thanks before turning back to her displays. “Our supply runs have been successful. Surprisingly so, actually. I don’t think local law enforcement would get in our way even if they knew what we were planning. We’ve been able to transport all kinds of weapons through various checkpoints right under their noses. Either they’ve suddenly become as dangerously incompetent as the Patriot Army or else they’ve decided to look the other way.”
“I’m making progress with local law enforcement,” Granden says.
“What about personnel?” Brohn asks. “We have forty-eight Insubordinates we’ve been working with upstairs. Most of them are coming along quickly and trying really hard. But in reality, with the limited time we have, only about thirty of them will be truly useful in a major infiltration and combat mission like we’re talking about.”
