Chains and Memory

by Marie Brennan

  I wouldn’t forgive me for it, either. However furious I was at my mother right now, I couldn’t repudiate her that way.

  What would Masangga do if I flat-out refused?

  I stared at the form, the blanks waiting for my new name. I hadn’t expected this—hadn’t given it any thought ahead of time. Then inspiration came. I scribbled quickly, not letting myself think twice about it, and shoved the paper back at her.

  Masangga picked it up and scanned it. Going by her expression, she was expecting me to have written “fuck you” for my new name. Instead she saw what I had chosen for myself.

  Surname: Fiain. First name: Kimberly. Middle name: Argant-Dubois.

  It meant letting go of my maternal grandmother’s name, Annette. I couldn’t quite bring myself to swallow the unwieldy prospect of being Kimberly Annette Argant-Dubois Fiain for the rest of my life. But I could live with this for a compromise. If I tilted my head sideways and squinted just right, I could pretend it wasn’t something forced on me by the government; it was something more like a marriage.

  That thought briefly killed my ability to breathe. In my head, I had just married Julian.

  If there was any advantage to being gutted, it was that Masangga had no idea what had just gone through my head. She nodded and filed the paper away. “Next matter. Are you familiar with the requirements of the draft?”

  The question helped kick my brain back into gear. As if I were in class and being called on by a professor, I parroted the words I had read a hundred times. “If an emergency situation of a magical nature arises, any Guardian on the scene has the authority to draft my assistance in any manner that does not directly endanger my physical or mental well-being.” Which was a moot point ninety-five percent of the time, because ninety-five percent of wilders were Guardians, and the geas the Seelie had laid on us would encourage me to pitch in regardless. Not that I would stand back if I could; I’d wanted to be a Guardian long before any of this happened. “Also, if war is declared, the government can conscript me for magic-related duties as they see fit.” That part might be very relevant to my future, depending on how things went with the Unseelie.

  “Yes,” Masangga said. “Now, there is a wrinkle here as well, in that you have not received the training expected of a wilder. The head of the Division for Special Psychic Affairs has consulted with the Centers for Wilder Education, and together they have formulated a course of study for you to begin as soon as possible—basically as soon as the doctor deems you fit to have the shield lifted.”

  My heart began beating faster. “What do you mean? What course of study?” I’d wanted to be a Guardian . . .

  “They’re making arrangements for you at the nearest Center, which is outside of Philadelphia.”

  I knew where it was. Julian had been raised there. “You mean—taking me out of D.C.?”

  Masangga nodded, as if it were both obvious and natural. To me, it was neither. “Outside of Philadelphia” meant way outside, in the Elk State Forest. The nearest town was the crumbling shell of a place that had been called Emporium, before it was deserted during First Manifestation. Unless they sent Julian with me—which I seriously doubted—I would be in the middle of nowhere, isolated from everyone I knew, and completely subject to the Center’s authority and control. Even if they had the best of intentions, it was too perfect a setup for things to turn absolutely awful. “No. Training, sure, but I’m not going to the Center.”

  This time she didn’t bother with a motherly smile. “Kim—”

  “There’s absolutely no need, and we both know it. You can’t tell me there aren’t shielded practice facilities here in D.C. Or on the outskirts of the city, if you want to be extra careful. But I have an internship and an obligation to finish it out; I have an apartment lease. And may I remind you, I am a free citizen.” My voice hardened on those words; I had to force myself to speak more evenly. “There is no law compelling training for wilders after the age of majority. I will accept it—but on my own terms.”

  Masangga looked like she’d bitten into an apple and found a worm. “The DSPA is not ignorant of how you’ve been spending your evenings for the last month.”

  “Good,” I said with a laugh that almost sounded real. It covered for the unpleasant shock that went through me. “Then they’re not incompetent. I’ll go back to Toby’s if the Division wants, or I’ll take more formalized training. Whatever you like, so long as it’s here in D.C. and allows for the fact that I’m a free woman.”

  She was silent for a moment. I let it stretch out. The ball was in her court; I knew the laws around me well enough to know the Division didn’t have a leg to stand on. The gun they’d been holding to my head for months had been fired, leaving them with no meaningful threats. If they got Congress to write a new law, that could cause me trouble . . . but until then, I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Masangga said at last, sitting back in her chair. Her tone didn’t promise much, but at least it was a start.

  “Thank you,” I said, with my best attempt at sincerity. “Are we done now?”

  “Not quite.”

  I’d already put my hands on the arms of my chair, started to stand up. Those words stopped me in my tracks. What had we missed?

  Masangga said, “Are you sexually active?”

  I thudded back into my chair so hard it squeaked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you presently in a sexual relationship with any individual? Including, but not limited to, Julian Fiain.”

  “That is none of your gods-damned business.”

  She put her elbows on the desk, leaning back toward me with a hard stare. “Unfortunately, it is. If you are sexually active, then I need to confirm that you are using some form of birth control. You may not be aware of this, but wilders cannot bear or sire children.”

  There was nothing like that in any of the laws. If there had been, I would have known about it months ago, and the ACLU would have sued the living hell out of it years ago. This wasn’t like the deep shield; there was no possible justification—

  A chill went through me, down to my bones. “What do you mean, cannot?”

  “You are incapable of it,” Masangga said. “Conception, yes, but not a viable birth. The genetics are poorly understood; possibly we’ll get a better understanding of it now that the Otherworld has returned. It operates in a manner similar to psi-sickness, and runs a high risk of killing the mother during pregnancy.”

  I couldn’t have stood up right then if she’d offered to remove the deep shield as soon as I was on my feet. Not a law. Biology. Some kind of mutation, maybe, a knock-on effect of the original mutation that turned an ordinary blood into a wilder. I wasn’t scientist enough to guess beyond that.

  Masangga was talking again, my thoughts scrambling to catch up. “Many wilders opt for sterilization, for safety’s sake. This is not a legal requirement, but the procedure is covered under federal funding. You may want to consider it.”

  I bloody well bet it wasn’t a legal requirement. That was the kind of thing they did in the twentieth century, as part of the eugenics movement. I was pretty sure it was an actual crime against humanity, in the technical sense.

  My body was still limp in my chair. I couldn’t wrap my head around this. I’d never really given a lot of thought to kids, whether I would have any or not—I hadn’t needed to. I was twenty-one. I was barely even beginning to think of myself as an adult.

  Better get used to it, I thought grimly. You stopped being a child when the Otherworld came back.

  Masangga was waiting for my brain to start working again. “You don’t need to worry,” I said dully. “I—I’ll—” Gods, I did not want to be discussing such things with this woman. “It’s taken care of.”

  She let me leave it at that, which was the first bit of mercy she’d shown this entire time. “Then I believe we are done,” she said. “I will be in touch regarding the issue of training.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I rose and
left without saying goodbye.

  Outside in the sun, I stood and let people flow around me on the sidewalk. I should wait until we were face-to-face, but this would eat at me for the rest of the day if I stalled. I walked partway down an alley, pulled out my port, and called Julian.

  He answered promptly, and whatever my image looked like in the video, it transformed curiosity to concern on the spot. “Are you okay? What happened in the meeting?”

  “I’m Kimberly Argant-Dubois Fiain now,” I said inanely, as if that were the actual reason I’d called. “At least, I will be once the paperwork goes through. And they want to send me to Pennsylvania for training, but I told them to go to hell. Or to train me here, which would probably be better.” I was rambling, but Julian knew to let me keep going until I got to the point. “She also . . . told me about children.”

  His expression went blank. It wasn’t Julian trying to hide anything from me; this was a deeper reflex, the one that kicked in when something really threw him. Self-control, I thought, above all. “Oh,” he said quietly. And then, after a moment, “I should have told you. I didn’t think . . .”

  “You figured I was on birth control,” I said. I’d gotten an IUD when I was fourteen. My mother believed in health, and in playing it safe.

  Julian said, “I knew I was sterile.”

  So he had been sterilized. Probably right before he came to Welton; I knew he’d been eighteen at the start of our freshman year, and presumably he had to be a legal adult before the procedure could happen. The next question came out before I could think about it twice. “Was that your choice?”

  “Yes,” he said, without hesitation.

  I believed him . . . but I couldn’t help wondering. Given the way wilders were raised, the atmosphere of strict self-control—which was not far from strict obedience to authority—how many of their choices were really made freely?

  My silence must have spoken all on its own. Julian added, “There was no reason not to. I didn’t know when, or if, I would find someone I could trust enough to get close to—but I knew I didn’t want to hurt them. And there’s really no other outcome for us.”

  I slumped against the wall separating the alley from the neighboring parking lot and blew out a slow breath. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julian said, quietly enough that I could barely hear him over the rattle of a bus going by. “You’ve already been put through so much. I shouldn’t have left you to find this out from some bureaucrat.”

  I bit down hard on the impulse to say, No, you shouldn’t have. How often did he even think about it? From his perspective, the problem was taken care of. He never had to worry about it again. I couldn’t blame him for not telling me, not really. As for whether I would do anything more . . . I shoved the thought from my mind. The IUD was good for my health in general; that was enough for now.

  I had enough other goddamned things to worry about.

  ~

  Ramos had left a message for me while I was in the hospital. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it for days, because I knew what it was going to say.

  After I finally scraped up the courage to face it, I called her office. Eduardo put me through immediately, which was both flattering and a bad sign. Ramos’ face was set in an expression of sympathy, but of course it would be. She was a politician. She had practice with breaking unpleasant news to people.

  “I got your message,” I said. “You’re going to drop my section from the bill?”

  Clearly she’d been planning some kind of introductory spiel, a lead-in that would let her soften the blow, but I’d headed it off at the pass. She simply said, “It’s already done. I know it doesn’t feel like it, Kim, but this is the best course of action.”

  My jaw ached from clenching. I’d waited until I thought I could have this conversation calmly, but maybe I’d been optimistic in my judgment. “All it does is leave us at square one. No, worse than that—square zero. Because according to the Eleventh Circuit judge, the existing law covers people like me. And that’s going to be cited as precedent for anybody who ends up in the same boat.”

  “It’s precedent, but it can be overturned,” Ramos said. “The Supreme Court didn’t uphold the ruling; they punted. Which leaves them room to rule differently at some point down the road. That’s a lot better than them deciding to hear your case, and ruling against you.”

  “But you could have made the whole thing moot.”

  She sighed and propped her elbows on her desk, her chin on her folded hands. “At a cost. Kim, the process of reconciling bills in conference is an enormous game of horse-trading. The other side offers to give up A if we give them B, and we offer C in exchange for D. The question has always been what we would have to give up to get you written out of the current system. Now that you’ve been shielded, most of my colleagues see the potential gain as close to nil. Fighting for this has become all cost, no benefit—at least in their eyes. Whereas if we gave it up, we could get something else we needed.”

  “No benefit,” I said, my voice stony. “Right. I suppose it looks that way, when you’re not the one who’s had the core of your soul ripped away.”

  Ramos flinched. I didn’t think it was staged, and I couldn’t have hit her empathically at this distance even if I hadn’t been gutted; she genuinely did regret how things had fallen out. “I haven’t given up, Kim. We may very well have better odds proposing this as a stand-alone bit of legislation, rather than trying to fold it into a monster omnibus like the Otherworld Act.”

  It was the closest thing I had to hope, so I clung to it. “Then no half measures, right? You’ll get comprehensive reform. A mandate to remove the shield from all adult wilders.”

  “We’ll see what we can do. Any such thing would need to be developed in consultation with DSPA leaders, of course . . .”

  She kept talking after that, but I more or less stopped listening. Gutted, talking to a baseline over a video call, I had nothing to go on but body language—and now that I was learning to pay attention, it told me things I didn’t want to know.

  That moment of honest emotion was gone. The cautious enthusiasm Ramos showed now was a mask for the truth: she wasn’t going to push for the shield to be removed. The words coming out of her mouth now were a political smoke screen, a flood of non-specific reassurances that promised exactly nothing.

  Two months ago, she’d supported the idea of freeing adult wilders, and I believed she had meant it. What had changed?

  Somebody had gotten to her, and talked her out of it.

  How?

  Blackmail? It was an absurd possibility, but the first one I could think of. Some kind of leverage, pushing her away from where she wanted to go. Or maybe some of that horse-trading she’d been talking about; maybe they’d offered her something else she really wanted, and she’d sold me out in exchange—never mind that fine story she’d told about her late wife and her lost wilder kid.

  My mother would have been able to find out what she’d gotten. But there was no way in hell I was asking my mother for any more help.

  Either way, it meant I was on my own. Or rather, we were on our own. The only people I could rely on in this fight were the other Fiain.

  And Liesel, I reminded myself. And Robert.

  It would have to be enough.

  ~

  That afternoon, while Julian was out grocery shopping, I called Liesel. “Tell me you have some good news.”

  I knew she didn’t. If her research had turned up anything useful, she would have called me. But the shield was eating at me worse than ever, to the point where I wanted to claw at myself, as if I could rip it off with my fingernails. I was curled up on the couch in order to keep myself from pacing a hole in the carpet, which was how I’d spent too much of my morning.

  Even through a screen, Liesel could read my state. Her sympathy and regret were clear. “I’m sorry, Kim. I’ve been looking, everywhere I can think to. I hoped there would be more in German than there is in E
nglish, but there just isn’t. It seems our government keeps things just as buttoned up as yours does.”

  “You’re sure it’s censorship from on high?”

  “Do I have proof? No. But I can’t imagine it’s anything else. There are enough academics in the world, studying every psychic subject in existence. One of them would have written about this by now.”

  I wrapped my arms tighter around my body, trying to contain the ache within. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Liesel. Eventually they’ll let me have my gifts back, okay—but that won’t fix anything. It’ll be just as bad, in a different way. I won’t hurt like I do now, but I’ll know they can make me hurt like this, any time they want.” When I swallowed, it felt like I was choking. I’d vowed not to dump this on Liesel, but with her image on the living room screen, watching me with that compassionate, supportive gaze, I couldn’t keep the words back. “I’m afraid it’s going to drive me insane. Not metaphorically—actually insane.”

  “That’s a reasonable fear.”

  I sat up on the couch, staring at her. “What? No—you’re supposed to tell me that it’s going to be okay, that it won’t be as bad as I think. I don’t want to hear that I’m right to be afraid.”

  Liesel winced. “Lord and Lady, Kim. I’m sorry. I don’t mean you’re going to turn schizophrenic or anything. It’s just . . .” She sighed. “I haven’t found anything useful about the shield, but while I’ve been looking, I’ve ended up reading a lot of other things. Did you know that if you want to work for the Centers for Wilder Education, you need at least a master’s degree in child psychiatry, and have to pass a battery of empathy tests on top of that?”

  “No,” I said slowly, “though I guess it makes sense.”

  “It does more than make sense. Wilders are raised in an institutional setting, with a small number of people taking care of a relatively large number of children. And they aren’t raised like normal children; everything they experience, long before they get to actual psychic training, is aimed at teaching them to self-regulate. To control their emotions and their reactions, to concentrate on the task at hand even when there are distractions all around. That has consequences, you know. Wilders are at high risk for attachment disorders, anxiety, a raft of neuroses—all kinds of problems.