Tortured Echoes

by Cody Sisco

  “We begin by welcoming new potentiates,” Del said. “Donya Largoso, welcome.” The young woman from Tosh’s group—Tosh’s second chief, she’d claimed—stood, waved, and turned, showing her face to the crowd. She squatted again, disappearing into the sea of heads.

  The ritual repeated four more times, Del calling out names, each one standing. Victor stopped paying attention, instead trying to puzzle out the odd tension in the pavilion. He hoped it didn’t have anything to do with him. What if they didn’t like him now that he wasn’t blank?

  On a whim, Victor stood. All heads swiveled toward him. “Stretching my legs,” he announced meekly. He watched Tosh’s group as Del continued the introductions. There was something aggressive and threatening about the way Tosh’s group clumped together, giving each other sly looks, jerking their heads toward whoever was standing or speaking, judging them, whispering to each other. It made Victor think of a pack of wolves scouting a flock of sheep and salivating. He squatted again, asking himself what Tosh was really after, and could he ever truly know and trust him?

  “Moving on,” Del said. “I want to talk about new developments in our faith. You all know our philosophy of Emergence, the journey we take together toward purity and embracing our humanity. What we don’t talk about enough is the reason for this journey.” He held up a book with a green cover and opened it to display yellowed, ragged pages.

  About a quarter of the Lifers in attendance bowed their heads and raised their arms, fingers splayed. A hum arose, then a sound like wind as breath passed their lips. The other Lifers looked with envy and pride at their downcast brethren.

  “What’s going on?” Victor asked Wonda, whose hands were raised up.

  “Emergence. Doctrine. An HL revelation,” she said, leaving him no more enlightened than before.

  Hands dropped and faces lifted as Del read from the book. “We are children of the universe, seeking to know the face of truth. We are eternal, we are unitary, we are human, and we must seek the truth.”

  “Truth is truth,” a voice yelled. The crowd took up the chant. It was a full minute until they settled down enough for Del to continue, the book now closed and clasped to his chest.

  “There are many who would embark on this journey with us, if only they could remove the veil from their eyes. In most cases, it’s a question of coming to enlightenment and admitting it into your heart. However, there are those who are being held back, imprisoned in their medications, barred from their humanity, forced into animal subservience. Today, I am announcing a new article of faith. From now on, we must not turn a blind eye to those whose purity has been taken from them. This is no idle promise. The Louisiana Territories is moving closer to passing the Classification Act. We must influence the debate. You all know about a seeker in our midst, Victor Eastmore. You’ve heard about his visions and trances, the emerging enlightenment of purity he is experiencing. He has started on the journey.”

  Victor shifted in his squat. A year ago, if this many people had paid attention to him at the same time, he would have run. An angry mob taking their vengeance on a Broken Mirror was a relatively rare thing, but it was a fear he couldn’t wipe away. Now the expressions on the faces around him were a mixture of awe and admiration. For what? Going blank? They didn’t know anything about it.

  “If I may,” Wonda said as she stood.

  Del squatted, yielding the floor.

  “Our aid is needed right now, here in New Venice,” Wonda said. “I’m talking about Samuel Miller.”

  Victor felt a wave of revulsion rise from his gut, and he was grateful he’d eaten lightly. Otherwise, he might have puked on the person in front of him.

  “Samuel Miller is a killer,” Wonda said, “a victim of delusions. Yet he was on the path to wellness before BioScan returned to medicating him against his will, stifling his humanity.”

  Victor couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This myopic, twisted version of the truth felt like a needle in his ear.

  “We’ve hired lawyers to demand a halt to his treatment. In addition, our gatherings in town will now include a call for his humane treatment. It is our number one demand. I know some of you will feel uncomfortable with this. How can we advocate for someone guilty of his crimes? I’ll say only this. We do not defend his actions. We defend his humanity. We do not get to bend our principles to remain comfortable. We do what our conscience demands. If it were any of you who were force-fed drugs”—Wonda laid a hand on Victor’s head—“we would not hesitate to help; we could not choose to ignore it. Nor can we now.”

  There was a murmur from the crowd that Victor couldn’t interpret. Were they all ready to go along with this? It was absurd. Taking Samuel Miller off medication was like letting a lion out of its cage.

  Wonda said, “We must also prepare to help the stim addicts whose numbers seem to be growing by the day. This will be their sanctuary.” She smiled and then squatted.

  Del stood and thanked her. “Does anyone else wish to speak?”

  Tosh rose. “I do,” he said from the periphery of the pavilion, from where, though far from Del, it was clear that he was the taller man.

  The crowd’s murmurs grew silent. Victor felt he was in the midst of a hive that suddenly had two queens.

  “I yield,” Del said. He squatted, looking toward Tosh.

  “Del and Wonda have set us noble challenges. The question is: Are we up for them? Do we have the strength of will and fortitude to press our claims? We’ve been called to court and to parade through the streets. To provide refuge. Are these enough? Do we wait for fortune to honor us? Or do we stand tall and seek our victory?

  “I know there are doubters among you. How can you seek and crawl? We cannot bend to an implacable enemy. BioScan is controlled by the Eastmore family, it’s true, but they are not honorable. They enfeebled one of their own. We are hosting Victor because his family has not stood up for him—they’ve failed him. When it was easier to allow Broken Mirrors to be locked up, they locked them up. When it was easier to spin lies about mirror resonance syndrome, they lied through their teeth. Now they bring their lies and their prisons to the Louisiana Territories and beyond. We will not allow their fascism to continue. We who’ve lived on this land know what can be done to suppress a people’s spirit, but it cannot be broken. We will not quietly say no. We will resist.”

  Victor stood up. A murmur that had been running through the crowd disappeared. The only sound was the flapping of the tent canvas in the breeze and a crow making weird clicking sounds.

  “Can I say something?” Victor asked. “You’re all talking about Samuel Miller like he’s the only person with skin in the game. Well, I’m right here. I should be able to have my say too, right?”

  Tosh stared at Victor, then squatted.

  “I’m not going to tell any of you what to do or what to think. I’m not certain of anything. That’s what life is like with MRS. I never know if I can trust what I’m seeing and hearing, what I’m thinking. If I can’t trust myself, how can I trust anyone else?

  “I was diagnosed when I was twelve. You all have probably never been to Semiautonomous California, most of you,” Victor gave Tosh a significant look, then continued. “In SeCa, people with MRS are called Broken Mirrors. We’re feared; we’re looked down on; we’re put into prisons, effectively. Very few are given the privilege of living free, walking on eggshells, waiting to be reclassified and sent away. I’d say the day I was diagnosed was the worst day of my life, but I’d be lying. Because I was four years old in Carmichael when Samuel Miller used vehicles to run people down in the streets. He gassed them to unconsciousness, then woke them up so he could shock them dead with a stunstick. He wanted them to be conscious for it so they could ‘cross over.’ He planted explosives on dozens of houses, including my own. I lived through Carmichael. I still have nightmares. The man who killed hundreds of people while believing he was helping them cross over to another world is here in New Venice, and you’re talking about his rights. It’s di
fficult for me to grasp.”

  Victor glanced at Wonda. She was looking up at him, her eyes glistening. She mouthed, “Keep going,” and nodded. Tosh had a curled fist pressed to his mouth.

  “I’m lucky to be alive,” Victor said. “I’m lucky to be free. And I’m lucky to be sane, for the most part. I’ve had years of professional help in dealing with MRS, more than any other person alive, Samuel included, and still I struggle with it every day. You want to take Personil away from everyone with MRS? You want to save stim addicts? Fine, but you have to be ready to deal with the consequences. How are you going to redirect delusional thinking? How do you treat withdrawal? How are you going to deal with the emotional extremes? There are going to be manic episodes. There are going to be psychotic breaks. What kind of care are you going to provide when that happens? I’m not talking about Samuel Miller. You’re starting something here much bigger than him. I can see that.”

  “Tell us!” someone shouted.

  “What do you see when you’re blank?” It was a woman’s voice—Wonda’s.

  It was absurd the things they expected of him. They had no idea what kind of mess they were getting into by trying to decipher delusions.

  “You want to know the future?” he asked. “I can see it. Not just in my dreams—I can see it waking. You’re going to take in all the Broken Mirrors? You think they’ll flee SeCa for this refuge? You think every stim addict in the A.U. will come to you begging for help?” Sarcasm gave his voice an unfamiliar, biting edge. Wonda frowned. Del was shaking his head. Good. He was getting through to them. They needed to hear how ridiculous their ideas sounded. “You’ll fill up the HL camp with a bunch of mental patients and addicts who aren’t used to freedom, who’ve never been here before, and you’re going to tell them they’re human, they’re pure, and not to worry about the stuff in their heads. Good luck with that.”

  Tosh stood. He gestured that his potentiates should stand with him, and they rose to their feet. “We’ll tell them that they’re human,” he said. A red-haired male potentiate next to him repeated his words, adding a subtle melody to them. “We’ll tell them they’re human.”

  The chant began to take hold throughout the gathered crowd. “We’ll tell them they’re human. We’ll tell them they’re human.”

  Victor dropped down to his butt, holding his forehead, rocking a bit. The blankness crackled in his ears.

  Del crouched next to him. “Look what you’ve done, Victor,” he said. His mouth was a taut line. “You took over a movement. I hope you’re ready to lead.”

  Victor opened his mouth to demur when the chanting ceased and several shouts rang out.

  “Stranger!”

  “Visitor!”

  “Is Victor here?” a familiar woman’s voice asked.

  He rose. At the edge of the pavilion, visible only because the Lifers had parted, her brown hair loose and wild, uncharacteristically natural, was Auntie Circe.

  She said, looking straight at him, “You’re coming home now.”

  30

  A clenched hand unfurls

  promises not kept

  part of me flies away in the breeze

  —Ming Pearl’s Now Blossom (1973)

  2 June 1991

  New Venice, The Louisiana Territories

  Victor stared at Auntie Circe. How could she stand there and tell him what to do? Why didn’t she drop dead of existential guilt from killing her own father? Then again, people likely to feel guilt weren’t the ones who could plan and follow through on murder. What was she that she didn’t feel what a human should?

  Wonda rushed to Victor’s side and gripped his hand. “Don’t go with her!” she whispered in his ear.

  “We need you to come home, Victor,” Auntie Circe said. She moved her gaze to members of the crowd, connecting with an individual, moving on to the next, working the crowd expertly as she was known to do. How had he not seen how manipulative she was from the start?

  “Thank you for taking care of him,” Auntie Circe said as she approached Del, who seemed unsure of himself, hands fluttering across his robes. He and Circe were shorter than the other adults. The two of them together formed a scene in miniature, standing close, the rest of the crowd watching from a distance. Victor noticed the pavilion’s fabric walls rustling, like layers of blankspace waiting to enfold him.

  “Victor is always welcome here,” Del said, “and he can stay as long as he likes.”

  “Thank you,” Circe said. She put a hand on Del’s arm. The gesture was familiar, intimate, and didn’t appear to be unwelcome. “It’s good to see you again. The work you’re doing is important, and BioScan is willing to support it. We need alternatives. The stim epidemic is too widespread for any one organization to cope with.”

  “You want to give them support?” Victor asked. “They don’t believe in medicine!”

  She was silent a moment, ear cocked, and then she said, “Of course we’re on the same side. Stims are the real threat.”

  The crowd murmured, a slightly agitated mumble. Circe looked around, taking note, then said in a loud voice, “Victor is the future of the Eastmore line, more precious than my own son. You all know how special he is.”

  Robbie’s going to flip when I tell him that, Victor thought. And then he felt ashamed—praise from a murderer shouldn’t feel good.

  “You’re aware how special he is,” Circe continued. “I wonder, though, if you truly understand his gifts. We’re only beginning to explore them. Emergence, I’d say, is not yet underway, and it’s important that we don’t interfere. We need to allow him room to grow into his full self, to find his potential. To ask too much too soon would be disastrous. I know you understand my meaning.” She patted Del’s shoulder as if he were a housecat and stepped toward Victor.

  How did she know what to say to put the Lifers at ease? How did she know how to seem like one of them herself?

  “Victor, we need to get you back to BioScan,” she said. “The concussion you suffered requires monitoring. There’s a possibility your brain is hemorrhaging.”

  “That’s one explanation for why I’ve been going blank recently. Want to hear the other?” he said.

  Auntie Circe smiled sadly and looked around at the gathered Lifers, watching them. “You should know that everything in this life is a gift. Especially the difficult moments. Believe me, I know your struggle.”

  “I know where the polonium on the data egg came from,” he said in a low voice, wondering as soon as the words were out of his mouth why he didn’t shout them as loud as he could.

  He tried to capture a filament of guilt or doubt running through her words, some glimmer in her eyes that she would turn back time if she could and resolve her dispute with Jefferson some other way. There was nothing.

  “The King,” she said, nodding. “It’s so unfortunate the lengths Jefferson was willing to go to manipulate you.”

  Victor stood dumbfounded. After all he’d learned, she was still going to deny the truth? Then again, why should she confess? It would be difficult to press a case against her—the King would have to get involved, there was the question of jurisdiction, she had virtually limitless resources, and who would believe someone like Victor?

  “I can guess what you’re thinking, Victor. But remember, Father wasn’t blameless. Ask yourself why he went through all this trouble. The guilt nearly destroyed him. I wish he could have been saved. But it’s too late. We have to focus on the future. We can talk more about this if you come with me. Let us help you.”

  Her dark eyes implored him. Guilty or not, he didn’t care. He’d buried the egg to buy himself some time. Now he wasn’t sure if he’d ever dig it up. He wanted nothing to do with Jefferson’s version of the past or Circe’s version of the future. He wasn’t going to be a pawn in anyone’s game anymore.

  “I’ll be fine here,” he said.

  “I hope you change your mind,” she said, and hugged him.

  Victor froze, relaxed, and assumed a posture of blankness,
letting himself hover on the edge, just enough to remain aware of his surroundings but seemingly blank to everyone around him.

  Circe peered at him, nodded, turned away. “Keep him safe,” she said. “He has untold revelations to share.” She shook Del’s hand, hugged Wonda, and recited pleasantries to a few Lifers who came up to her, curious and thrilled to meet another Eastmore. Victor watched on the edge of blankness, as she said her good-byes, feeling that home was now lost to him forever.

  31

  An ecosystem represents interdependence, chaotic flows, and creative dynamism. These are the principles that govern the company. Charges of profiteering misconceive everything we’re working toward.

  —Circe Eastmore’s Race to the Top (1991)

  2 June 1991

  New Venice, The Louisiana Territories

  The crowd filtered out of the pavilion while Del, Tosh, and Wonda gathered near Victor. Del commenced a squat talk, and Wonda gently pulled Victor down to join them.

  “She’s on our side,” Wonda said. “I believe her.”

  “Bullshit,” Tosh said. “She runs the largest health care company in the American Union. She’s playing you.”

  Del said, “We shouldn’t talk about sides. Ours is a path of seeking. Truth may come from unexpected directions, and we have to remain open to it. Who would have guessed a prophet like Victor would find his way to us?”

  “I’m here—I’m not blank,” Victor said, “and I’m not a prophet. Neither is Samuel Miller. Don’t forget that.”

  “A rose by any other name,” Wonda said, looking reverently at Victor.

  “Circe smells like shit,” Tosh said. “Lying, dirty, infectious shit. You can’t listen to her.”

  “Tosh!” Del warned. “That kind of hostility is not welcome here.”

  Tosh smirked. “If a monster wants to tear off your face and eat your guts, you can call it whatever you like, but it’ll still kill you.”