Red

by Ryan Rinsler

  Connor sat up slowly and swung his feet down to the floor. He pulled out the needle from his arm, removed the rubbery grey cap, and rubbed his face again, inhaling heavily through his fingers.

  “Where did you get it from?” he asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” replied Jacob. “How’d you get on?”

  “OK, I think.” He was still talking slowly and quietly, attempting to preserve as much energy as possible as he came around. “This is the worst I’ve felt yet, I think.”

  “After coming out?”

  “Maybe. Actually I think it might’ve been worse the first time. Can’t remember.”

  “Well, take your time. We’ve got lots of food for when you’re ready,” Jacob said. “Feeding you is a lot more difficult than keeping you hydrated.”

  “OK, I need to wake up a bit first,” he replied. “Where’s Matt and Nolan?”

  “Matt’s in bed and Nolan’s taking a walk.”

  Connor blinked heavily to clear the fuzz from his eyes, then glanced at Jacob. “A walk? What, outside?”

  “He’s perfectly alright,” said Jacob. “He’s not about to go running off.”

  “Well, I hope he doesn’t,” he said. “In fact, it’s probably worth you learning some of how this works in case anything happens.”

  “Yes I’ve been learning a few things. I figured it best to have a couple of us here on this side who can work this thing,” he said, nodding toward the large, white pill-shaped Seeker device. It smelled hot. Whatever that smell was specifically, he didn’t know, but it smelled like every hot machine he’d ever smelled, like burning plastic and acidic chemicals.

  “Is it still OK?” he asked.

  “What, that? No idea. I presume so.”

  “We can’t afford for that to fail. That’ll be it.”

  “Oh, let’s not worry about that now,” said Jacob. “Are you hungry? I’ll get us some food on.”

  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  After Jacob had left the room he took off the rather smelly pants, awkwardly removing himself and the tube, before dropping them on the other side of the room. He dressed in the neatly folded clothes Jacob had placed next to him.

  He made his way upstairs, his legs aching and heavy, each step an effort, and freshened up in the bathroom. Looking in the mirror as he dried his face he wondered what it would be like to come face to face with him.

  With the enemy.

  Would he look the same? He’d have the same eyes of course, but would he look the same? It was well documented that twins who share virtually the same genes but have radically different upbringings could often change in appearance as they grow and experience the lives that make them different from one another.

  He pictured what he may look like. How did he cut his hair? Did he shave? These were trivial things of course, but to Connor they interested him deeply and stood for something deeper. On the grandest scale his life decisions were clearly black vs white in comparison to Connor’s, but how would this stark difference in personality affect his smaller decisions?

  Although he wouldn’t admit it to himself, at least not in his mind’s voice, he wanted Voss to look so different to him that he was almost unrecognizable. He hoped the personality traits that led Voss to become the tyrant he was were not entirely genetic. It had crossed his mind that he had the potential to be him, to make the same choices and decisions, and it troubled him that he couldn’t consciously determine why he didn’t, or wouldn’t, make these choices. If he had some mechanism, some clear thing other than ‘it’s wrong’ to help him separate himself from Voss, he assumed his mind would rest a little easier.

  Still, the simple fact it was on his mind was enough for now. It was at the forefront of his consciousness in such a way that he was judging every decision he was making, from conversations with Mana to the simple selection of bread from the mess hall canteen, on whether it was a decision he was making, or one they may have shared. He had to keep himself separated from the person he knew he could be, and use it as a weapon against him.

  He shuffled out of the bathroom and gave Matt’s room a knock. After a second knock with no response he pushed open the door and was greeted with Matt’s bare ass sticking out from the duvet. It wasn’t a sight he hadn’t seen before, but one he was never in a rush to witness again. He pulled over the duvet and gave him a shake.

  “Matt,” he said in a loud whisper. Wondering why he was whispering when he actually wanted to wake him up, he raised his voice. “Matt!” he shouted, shaking him a little more rigorously.

  “Go away,” he mumbled, his face pressed into the duvet beside his pillow.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “Get your shit together, I’ll see you downstairs.”

  He entered the kitchen where Jacob and Alex were preparing food.

  “I thought you might like some pasta. Mac and cheese. Carb you up. Get your salts up.”

  Connor snorted with laughter. “Sounds great, dad,” he said, taking a seat at the table. He knew if it was left to himself he probably would have had a bag of chips and some peanut butter out of the jar. He emptied a huge glass of apple juice into his stomach just as quickly as he’d filled it, gasping as he placed the glass back on the table.

  “How long was I in?” he asked, catching his breath.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Twenty hours or so?” replied Jacob, spooning the mac and cheese from the pan to a large bowl by the stove. “You seemed pretty relaxed. I guess nothing crazy went on, no?”

  “No, not really,” said Connor. “It was mainly just talking. That’s what I think most of it will be at the moment. Talking about stuff.”

  “Well,” said Jacob, taking a seat and placing the steaming bowl of pasta in the center of the table, “there’s much to learn. I imagine you’ve only just scratched the surface too.”

  “Yeah I pretty much know nothing about their world. I learned a few things but they just gave me more questions than I had before.”

  “I’m sure they’ll fill you in with all that,” he replied, ladling pasta onto Connor’s plate. “Bread?”

  Connor nodded. “This is the thing though, dad, I don’t think they know the full details of it either.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah they’ve not got many tech guys in their, um, group, so they can’t find any specifics out at all. I guess they’ll be able to give me the history of it all, which will help.”

  “Yes, of course. So that’s why they needed Matt to help with his hacking skills?”

  “Yeah. The history is what I’m really itching to find out,” said Connor. “What happened. How everything turned, and when. Obviously Voss carried on his parents’ company, and who knows where they are now, but how it went from an electronics manufacturer to a company that controlled the world is just… I dunno.”

  Matt entered the room, his hair sticking out like he’d been in a fight with a pack of dogs. He sat at the table and, with a loud squelch, helped himself to a generous portion of pasta, much to Jacob’s delight.

  “What’s happenin’ bro?” he asked, displaying just about as much energy as Connor was feeling.

  “You’ve gotta go in,” he replied. Both Matt and Jacob jerked their heads to look at him. “They need you over there.”

  “What for?”

  “Now you’ve hacked the Seeker here they want you to do the same their side so they can get into Silk universes like us.”

  Matt gave a few wide blinks to indicate he wasn’t a fan of this idea.

  “You’ll be fine buddy, it’s all good in that bunker. Anyway they might send you in as a hot female soldier.”

  One of his eyebrows raised the slightest amount.

  “Their numbers are going downhill,” Connor continued, tucking into his meal. “This is the next step.”

  “When?”

  “Soon as possible,” he replied with long swings of his head from side to side to add emphasis. “As soon as we’ve finished here you can go in.”


  Matt helped himself to another ladle of pasta.

  “Morale is low, I guess,” said Connor. “That’s what it feels like. They introduced me to these… people. They were, um, they were like zombies. That’s the only way I can describe them.”

  “Like from movies?” asked Jacob.

  “Are they the ones you told me about?” asked Matt, interjecting. “Where they just stand there?”

  “Yeah,” replied Connor. “It’s not good over there. That’s just a small portion of it.” He finished up his plate and stood up, hearing the front door click in the other room. “I’ll go and get things ready with Nolan now he’s back. You finish up here and meet me in there,” he said to Matt. He turned to Jacob who had taken his plate and was about to wash it in the sink. “Thanks, dad,” he said with a warm smile.

  “Uh?” he said, twirling his head around dramatically. Connor chuckled at how over the top he could be at times.

  “Never mind,” said Connor, still grinning. “You get a rest tonight, yes?”

  “Yes, yes,” he replied, washing away. “I thought we could have a sit down in the library and have a drink and a chat.”

  “Yeah, that sounds nice. Anything you need to talk about?”

  “No, no, just a catch up. I still feel like there’s so much I can help with, so, you know, I’d like to know more.”

  He knew Jacob also wanted to do a little psychiatry on him to make sure he was OK. Jacob had always been adept at reading Connor’s moods, as everyone else could, apparently, and he was likely picking up on his gloominess. Connor knew himself that he was being somber, but having such a visceral example of the torture that these people — their entire world — had endured and was still enduring, it added to the pressure and overwhelming anxiety that was slowly beginning to envelop him.

  He met Nolan in the morning room, who was busy fiddling with one of the grey caps. He paused without looking up as Connor entered, just for a moment, then continued. There were wires strewn across the floor, and strange, glass-looking tubes, tiny and seemingly delicate next to Nolan’s feet. Nolan shattered this illusion of fragility as he grabbed one of them and stuffed it into the cap, bending and flexing it as much as he needed.

  “Hello Nolan,” he said. Nolan paused once more, this time for longer. He raised his head and looked Connor in the eye. His expression was one of relaxed wariness, with a slight sadness in his eyes. He was no longer displaying the fear he once had, and for Connor, this was a huge step.

  Just in time, releasing Nolan from the hook of potentially having to go the next step by actually saying something to him, Matt entered the room. Nolan immediately returned to work.

  Connor nodded at Matt knowingly, a wry smile on his face.

  “What?”

  “Remember you laughed at my toilet pants?”

  Matt looked startled, his eyes bursting wide in realization.

  “Now they’re secondhand,” said Connor, still nodding with a perfectly intentional exaggerated smugness.

  “No…”

  “I gave it a wash,” said Jacob, who entered the room and caught the gist of their conversation. “No need to worry.”

  Connor’s smugness was increasing tenfold with every sigh and huff that came out of Matt’s mouth as he wrestled with the pants in the corner of the room. Once he’d finished, he walked over, being sure to cover himself with a cushion, and lay on the bed. Nolan dropped the cap he was working on and handed Matt the other. He slipped it on and lay back.

  “You’ll be pretty safe there, just follow Mana’s instructions and ask him for anything you need.”

  “I need Nolan,” he said, sitting up slightly, looking at Nolan who was busy tapping into the screen on the Seeker.

  “There’s one there,” said Connor, with a tilt of the head and a half smile. “Funny, right?”

  “Hilarious,” he replied, dropping back down to the pillow.

  Nolan counted backward from ten, and as he reached zero, Matt’s lights went out.

  28

  Darkness had arrived in the Colorado Mountains, and the blackness of the night was uninterrupted as Connor gazed at nothing but the reflection of the library in the vast windows that spanned the wall. He relaxed on the old Winchester sofa, the faux leather creaking as he moved, the weathered buttons cold to the touch. He was so used to invisible edges, corners and straight lines, that he’d all but forgotten that furniture like this existed. The antique coffee table in the center of his apartment living room acted as a reminder to him, the ornate carving of a single teak tree root being the essence of organic-meets-design, but after more than a few months of living in the apartment his eyes gradually grew blind to its existence. It became part of the background — he always knew it was there, but didn’t think to truly look at it — to acknowledge its presence and analyze everything it stood for.

  Jacob handed him a glass of whiskey. “So, how are you?” he asked.

  “Um, I’m not sure.” He wanted to speak to Jacob, and was ready to.

  “What is it, son?”

  A lump welled in his throat. He had so many emotions building inside him. “I, um...” The very tip of his chin immediately began to quiver and his eyes began to fill. He coughed, trying to free his throat from the painful lump, but the more he did the more it grew. “I…” he said, trying again. The corners of his mouth turned downward involuntarily, and now his whole chin was shaking.

  “It’s OK, son.”

  He wiped his eyes and blew out his cheeks. There was a silence between them. After a few moments he took his first gulp of whiskey. “I…”

  “Take your time,” said Jacob, leaning forward. He placed his hand on Connor’s knee. “It’s OK, son.”

  He coughed back the lump once more, wiping the tears with the sleeve of his t-shirt. “I don’t want to be him, dad,” he choked.

  Jacob leaned his head back in recognition of Connor’s biggest fear, taking a deep breath in as he did so. He then relaxed back into his chair and looked down at his drink, his eyes welling up too. He nodded ever so slightly to himself. “I’ve seen it’s been on your mind, son. We’ve talked about it here and there, but really, I knew it was nibbling at you.”

  Connor swallowed painfully, sniffing constantly as his nose ran. “It’s hard, dad,” he said, his voice shaking and thick. Then, lifting his voice, with a frustrated tone, he continued, “But the thing is, I feel selfish for just thinking it. I’m sad because of me. Those people in there have got it… they’ve got it worse than anything I could imagine, and here am I upset because I feel guilty.”

  “It’s perfectly natural, son.”

  “I dunno, dad. It’s all just getting on top of me, then I feel bad, like I’m a spoilt child or something and I should be thankful it’s not me in there, which makes me feel even worse. I looked in the mirror today and I didn’t know if I was looking at me or him. The same blood flows through my veins as his, and I know that I’m genetically identical, so why couldn’t I be him?”

  “You could.”

  This response took Connor by surprise.

  “It’s absolutely possible that you could be him, or could have.”

  He didn’t know how to answer, so he didn’t.

  “The upbringing, of, let’s take a man, as you are one, can be swayed violently by a number of things.”

  Connor relaxed. Here it was, Jacob’s healing words which had so often bandaged him and anaesthetized him, fixing his deepest anxieties and seemingly unrepairable problems. This beautiful man, so selfless and ready to give everything he had for this boy, had brought him back from the depths of his own despair more times than he could remember.

  He opened his mind readily.

  “We’ll get onto the subject of partners later, but the absolute key to all of this, of everything that has happened, I can almost guarantee boils down to a single thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “His relationship with his father.”

  They shared a silence, minutes long. C
onnor suspected there had been this dynamic at play, with Jacob being the one who brought him out of wherever it was he existed all those years ago, but to shift the overwhelming emphasis onto his father was a curveball.

  “Tell me about him,” said Jacob.

  This also took him by surprise. He sat for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. Despite the long nights of talking and therapy Jacob had bestowed on him since he was a boy, the subject of his father was out of bounds, in an unwritten sense at least. Now there was a reason to open up about him. He’d thought about his past life briefly, but shut it out, leaving the broken caterpillar behind in the chrysalis, and emerging the new moth.

  His cheeks were burning and itchy from the drying saltwater, and his throat still painful.

  He began from the only place he knew.

  “I remember, when I was maybe six, sitting in my parents’ living room. It’s only vague. I can remember the fireplace, which was huge, at least to me. I thought it was a real one back then but looking back it was probably fake. Lukas, my dad, had some guests round and me and Micha—”

  He paused momentarily, collecting himself. Then, with a deep breath, he continued.

  “Me and Michael were playing in the living room while this dinner was going on. Mikey will have been about, maybe, four at this point, or just turning it at least. The first thing I remember from that night was the shouting. Everyone was shouting. They were having a good time, it wasn’t like arguing, but everyone having dinner was making so much noise. I was playing a game on my console and Michael was playing with his toys. We were different back then. I used to be the one to pick up electronics and he’d always be the one who wanted to jump in the piles of leaves in the garden.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes once more. He paused, and took a drink.

  “Often I’d be annoyed because I’d be stuck inside with no one to play with. I’d have the most expensive game console you could buy, and VR goggles as they were getting big by then too, but Michael, no. He would be outside banging something with a stick or flinging dog shit over the wall with it.”