by Cody Sisco
“And my auntie is the chief, and I’m an Eastmore—I own this company. I’m telling you: don’t let anyone in, or I’ll have you fired. I mean it.”
Velasquez nodded.
Victor took a deep breath. It was too late for second guessing, too late to go back and let sleeping dogs lie. He opened the door.
Samuel Miller was painting the walls with blood.
Victor blinked, looked twice, then realized the walls were streaked with rusty-red paint from a tube. The shapes decorating the room were vaguely humanoid, fuzzy limbs stretching from blurry torsos, heads suggested only by circular whirls above the rest. Samuel was painting a red layer on top of other layers, stacks of colors, all streaky and blurry.
Samuel didn’t stop when Victor entered. He moved frenetically, sometimes using a brush, sometimes his finger or the side of his hand. Stepping into the room was like stepping into a resonant episode. The owl mantra silently passed Victor’s lips.
“Samuel,” Victor said after a moment, “we need to talk.”
Without halting his painting, Samuel said, “Talk, yes, and more, an exchange of vibrations, not just speech, emotions as well.” He straightened, became still. “I remember you now, Victor.”
“We’re going on a walk to another building. When we get there, we’re going to use a brain scanner to see inside your head.”
Samuel ignored him, working on his paintings, weird primal visions of beings in other worlds. They looked familiar. With a slow creeping dread, Victor realized they didn’t look so different from the auras and colors of his synesthesia that he’d learned to interpret as emotions. In that respect, he and Samuel weren’t so dissimilar.
Victor took out the data egg and set it on the table with enough force to make a knocking sound. Samuel turned, gaze intersecting with the data egg.
“Have you seen this before?” Victor demanded.
“In my dreams,” he said. Then he laughed, a soft hollow sound like stones landing on dirt at the bottom of a dry well.
Samuel squeezed and emptied the tube of paint, held a gob of red in one hand, smacked both hands together, and then smeared the wall. “I’ve been hearing the voices again, not so clearly as the first time, they were never clear, but now they’re like faded echoes. The primals are back.”
“You’re hallucinating,” Victor said.
Samuel stopped and looked at Victor, a smirk twisting one side of his wide mouth. “You think it’s all in my head? It’s in yours too. Our minds sieve the universe together. We’re barely solid.” He began painting the wall again. A life-size figure like a red upright shadow took shape. “I kept calm in Carmichael for the most part. I listened. I tried to record the voices and make sense of them. I applied myself to finding a scientific explanation. Ours is not the only universe, you know. There must be other worlds floating on a quantum foam of probability. Must be. So many angels dancing on the head of a pin. The same angel really. Time itself. How many paths does a waveform follow? How many paths to the future? This fork branches; that fork stubs. I realized, instead of a dead end, we could cross over. And the primals were calling to me for help.”
Victor’s heart beat faster with each word tumbling out of Samuel’s mouth. The appeal of a manic state was that it felt true and right. Delusions were more comforting than uncertainty, the exhilarating rush like a drug.
“I thought I had dreams of you before the massacre and knew what you were planning,” Victor said. “I was wrong.”
Samuel froze, put one arm up against the wall, rested his head on it. “I wish you had. Dreams. Voices. Electrochemical pathways activating, reacting to stimuli, cogitating. The multiverse hacks our brains.”
Then Samuel was silent for so long that Victor thought he might be asleep standing up. Victor looked at the data egg. It sat on the table, motionless, black, looking inert. Was it helping Samuel? It didn’t seem to be.
Victor muttered, “The wise owl listens before it asks who.”
Samuel spun around, eyes wide, mouth open, outraged, and then he moved so quickly Victor had no time to react. Paint-smeared hands grabbed Victor’s shirt, shaking him.
“I didn’t know whose voice it was!” Samuel’s eyes moved back and forth, accusing. “It was you!”
The walls of the room began to dissolve, and blankness filled the void. Smoke seemed to fill the air, to swirl in the whites of Samuel’s eyes. Victor grasped Samuel’s shoulders. “You’re going to sit down and repeat the mantra with me. The wise owl listens before he asks who. Say it!”
“Oh, he listens. The wise owl listens,” Samuel repeated in a pained voice. “Yes, he listens. I listened. I did!” He sat on the couch, palms together between his knees, rocking forward and back.
Victor pulled a chair over. He cupped the data egg in his hands and grasped Samuel’s so they held it together.
“Quietly,” Victor said. “Softly. We’re going to push the blankness away and then head over to the brain scanner. Have you seen this before? Did Jefferson speak to you about it?” Everything felt insubstantial, as if he and Samuel, the room, and the air were made of light, ephemeral, barely there.
Samuel looked up, brow wrinkled, confused. “Nothing. He never spoke. Only looked at me. I probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway. They doped me, made the primals disappear.”
“He came to you with a plan, didn’t he? He must have.”
Samuel rocked, shimmied, and shied away like a chained mongoose in a fight with a viper. The room dissolved, then returned. “Victor, your voice—it echoes. I didn’t know it was you. I could have stopped it. Shocks! Shocks! Shocks! I heard it. I could have stopped it.”
Samuel yanked his hands away. The data egg dropped to the floor and rolled under the couch.
Victor scrambled onto his hands and knees, reached under, fingers swiping across the floor. It felt like his hand was dipping into a cold well of outer space.
He heard a smacking sound, looked up, saw Samuel hitting himself, hard flat palm striking his face, repeatedly.
“Stop it,” Victor said, pulling himself up, grabbing Samuel by the shoulders, coaxing him to standing too. “Calm. Focused. Repeat the words! Calm. Focused.”
Samuel closed his eyes. “Calm. Focused. That voice!” His voice was panicked, high and wavering.
“Breathe,” Victor said.
Knocks on the door made Victor jump, though they sounded muffled, from another plane of existence. “Is everything all right?” Karine’s voice asked.
“We’re fine!” he yelled. “Give us some time.”
“Time!” Samuel repeated. His eyes popped open, dark brown irises appearing nearly black. “Space. Blankspace.”
Victor felt the ground drop from beneath his feet, and then he and Samuel were floating. Whiteness all around them. “No,” he said, digging his fingers into Samuel’s shoulders. The room’s outlines, grayish areas fighting with the blankness, shimmered into view.
“Help me cross over,” Samuel said. His voice was calm, neutral, persuasive.
Why shouldn’t I? Victor thought, picturing his hands closing around Samuel’s neck.
Vertigo like a wrecking ball slammed into Victor like the entire weight of the universe, then ricocheted away. There was nothing to see, white blankspace all around.
“No,” Victor whispered, his own voice small and ragged. “I’m not going.” He flexed his fingers, felt the material of Samuel’s shirt, smelled paint wafting. “We’re staying right here. Now.”
The room was back. Victor was back.
Samuel blinked at him with the near blank passivity of a resonant episode. On the cusp. Victor had to bring him back too.
“I gave you an owl,” Victor said. “Do you remember? The first day you worked in the preschool classroom. I drew an owl and gave it to you and said you were supposed to keep it and listen.”
“A little owl. A drawing. A missed connection. I never saw your primal.”
Victor looked at the blurry painted figures on the wall, Samuel’s
primals, representations of the halos he saw around people he was supposed to help cross over. Victor shuddered.
Samuel said, “You wanted them to cross over. I listened.”
“No. The voice wasn’t real. That’s the past anyway. This is now. We’re in a room at the BioScan clinic in New Venice. Me and you. The primals aren’t real. I see crazy stuff all the time, and it feels real. It’s hard to tell the difference, but you can do it.”
Samuel’s jaw stiffened; his eyes began to focus.
“Look at me,” Victor said. “I’m going to help you. Without drugs. You’re going to be okay.”
“Help me cross over?”
“No. We have the same problem in our brains. We’re going to fix it.” Victor grabbed Samuel by the chin.
Samuel’s gaze snapped back into focus. He shrugged away. “I don’t like to be touched,” he said. He put a hand on the wall, looked down at himself, raised his hands, staring at the paint. “I need to clean myself up.”
Something rattled by the wall. Victor turned and saw a glow, as if one of Samuel’s painted primals was pulsing. He got closer. The light changed. Victor pushed the sofa to the side and uncovered the data egg. It was shining white now. Then opalescent colors whirled across its surface—magenta, electric blue, green like specks in Elena’s eyes.
The data egg was opening again.
Victor grabbed it and sat with his back to the door to block it.
The hologram of Jefferson Eastmore’s head appeared and opened its mouth.
Samuel, so eager to see primals, apparently didn’t like this manifestation and cowered in the corner.
“Tell me, Granfa,” Victor whispered. “Tell me who killed you.”
22
Never regret hard choices. The world needs them, whether it knows it or not.
—Jefferson Eastmore’s The Wheel of Progress (1989)
23 May 1991
New Venice, The Louisiana Territories
The hologram showing Jefferson Eastmore’s face looked like the shining head of a statue had come to life monochromatically. The resolution wasn’t fine enough to create realistic eyes. It looked like a blind white bodiless ghost.
“Victor, if you’re listening to me now, you’ve triggered my second message by helping Samuel Miller moderate a resonant episode. I’m so proud that my faith in you has been proved justified. By now it’s reasonable to assume you’re having an impact in Carmichael, helping Semiautonomous Californians rethink their relationships with their fellow citizens who battle mirror resonance syndrome every day. I trust you’ll continue to be an inspiration.
“Now that you’ve achieved mental stability and clarity, it’s time for me to level with you. I haven’t always been forthcoming about my aims and methods. Helping people who suffer maladies has always been my north star, but sometimes my path took me into dark places.”
The Jefferson head shrunk as if he’d sat back from the vidcapper. A moment later when it moved forward again, Victor noticed his granfa’s hair was thinning, his face starting to look blotchy, signs the radioactive poison he’d been dosed with was having an effect.
“Tell me,” Victor whispered. “Come on, Granfa, tell me.”
Jefferson continued, “The ban on research into mirror resonance syndrome was a mistake. The worst in a series of mistakes we made after Carmichael. It was sold to me as a temporary measure. I would never have agreed to a permanent ban. The atmosphere post-Carmichael was toxic, and we made mistakes. Yes, I’ll admit it, we didn’t take all the precautions we might have, but we were in such a rush to find answers. When that poor nurse killed himself, people blamed Samuel, and all hell broke loose. Mía was on the warpath and wielded more influence than I anticipated. She got the ban passed—for everyone’s protection, she said.
“If only your friend Ozie could fix up some magical machine to send messages to me in the past, and tell me how to fix my mistakes before I made them.”
Jefferson smiled sadly, a smile Victor couldn’t help but mirror.
“Listen to me sounding foolish when I should be telling you the truth. The truth is hard, Victor. That’s a lesson that keeps coming round.
“I was responsible for the data breaches at both the Holistic Healing Network and Gene-Us Enterprises. For the latter, you unwittingly helped me. I’m glad no one learned the truth about that, not even you. I’m sorry to have used you that way.
“Working with the King of Las Vegas and his techies, I leaked the genetic sequence for mirror resonance syndrome to bypass the restrictions on research in SeCa. The idea was to run a research program in the Organized Western States to develop more effective treatments.”
Jefferson’s expression hardened, a crease forming between his eyebrows, a dark V, a sparse photonic emotion—frustration—appearing on a face made of light.
“I was duped. The King never wanted a cure. He wanted a narcotic. The stims we’re having such a problem controlling came from that bad decision on my part. The wheel of progress turned backwards, I fear, and the scourge of addiction haunts us.
“Circe found out what I did. She must have thought by poisoning me little by little she was dispensing justice for the addicts. Who can blame her? We’ve never had a normal relationship. I wasn’t a good father to her. I was too strict, too determined that she would follow in my footsteps. When someone has been pushed too far, it should not be a surprise when they push back. Of course I’m angry, and I feel betrayed. But I understand.
“I’m telling you this because now you’ve seen Samuel. You understand that he’s delusional, that his ideas are nonsense. I needed you sane enough to recognize that. You see, Circe does not. She believes him in his lunacy.”
Victor couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe. Time moved on around him, but, inside, everything had stopped.
“I’m relying on you. I fear not just for you but for—Laws, I don’t know how to say this without sounding melodramatic—Circe has plans far darker, far more twisted than Samuel Miller ever did. And with the resources she has at her disposal, frankly I fear for humanity.
“In my last message, I warned you about people with mystical beliefs, who believe in other worlds and crossing over. I was warning you about her. Do not cross her. Do not engage with her.
“The data egg is open for you now. It has all my research on the cure, what little I could accomplish under the radar, at least, and it will point you to a useful tool I managed to conceal at the Lone Star Kennel in the Republic of Texas. Use it wisely.
“Be safe, Victor. And remember. Trust in science. Trust in logic. Trust in the real world. Everything else is fantasy. I love you. I’m sorry.”
23
We each play a role. Mine has been to seek and foster excellence in the people around me. I do not do this because I lack an ego but because I believe firmly that together we are greater than the sum of our parts.
—Circe Eastmore’s Race to the Top (1991)
23 May 1991
New Venice, The Louisiana Territories
The primals seemed to shimmer on the walls. The paint was still wet, scattering photons through dust particles that swirled in the drug hut’s stuffy sitting room. Green streaks like blades of grass formed a halo around one of the figures.
“She believes,” Samuel said. He sat in the corner, feet flat on the floor, hands gripping his knees. “She believes me.” He started to rock, weeping. “She’ll help me.”
An unbidden intuition intruded on Victor’s mind: What if these figures represented the primals of actual people? What if Samuel was recreating his list here, right on the wall for Victor to see, of people he intended to help cross over? Deep in Victor’s mind, he knew he should warn someone about it, but the blankness was too inviting to stay with that thought for long.
Victor stood, shoved the data egg—black now with two red rings around it—in his pocket, and wobbled a bit, feeling woozy. He lurched to the door, opened it. Footsteps pounded on the floor boards behind him. He was turning
slowly, was shoved to the side. He gripped the door frame as Samuel burst past him into the living room.
Samuel banged on the door to the balcony, demanding to be let out, while the two guards tried to pull him back, having little success. One searched through his utility belt for a sedative. Karine stood by, watching them closely. For a moment, Victor felt drawn to go up to her and apologize. Instead, he let himself out the front door.
A cool breeze moved through the vegetation. Trees shed cottony seeds with every gust, clouding the air as competently as fog. The low horn of one of the barges sounded down the hill at the new harbor.
A feeling of unreality washed over Victor. He couldn’t really be seeing all this. He must be somewhere else. And then he was gone.
***
And he was back again, crossing a bridge over the Petit Canal, smelling algae atop the water and barbecue from one of the street vendors, ribs on a grill, sweet and smoky.
Then he remembered Carmichael, the smoke floating over the houses, a low black ceiling over the town, smelling of char.
Blankness was preferable to knowing what he couldn’t now unknow. Victor let it surge through him, a tingling warmth that started in his groin and spread throughout his body. Better to feel this good for as long as possible.
***
He came to, half-conscious, outside of Ozie’s van, in a gravel parking lot not far from the highway north of town. His hand pressed against a metal plate, warm from the day’s sun, and the door swung open. Ozie wasn’t inside, but his smell was, a musk Victor associated with flannel shirts and white briefs and rooms dimly lit by the green-on-black glow of idle vidscreens.
Without thinking much about it, Victor’s hands searched through bins of electronic gear, pulling headcaps from their hooks, tossing aside circuit boards and coming back tangled with cables that flexed of their own accord like eels.
He found what he was looking for: a plastic box, black but not as black as the data egg, with gold thread woven through it reminding him of expensive marble countertops in an Oakland & Bayshore bank that was the gateway to much of his personal wealth. He’d never had unfettered access to it. First he was a minor; then he was a Class Three Broken Mirror, and he’d only had permission to withdraw a certain amount per week for basic living expenses. Funds to buy a MeshBit, like the one Ozie had confiscated back in the Springboard Café, had required a visit to the bank with the black-and-gold countertops along with his mother, who cosigned for the amount.
