by Sean Platt
All eyes were on Isaac and Micah. Natasha came into the open, and their eyes moved to her, too.
The Enterprise champion.
The famous wife, who’d shift to Enterprise and leave her husband behind.
And the Directorate face man in the middle, arms at his sides, clueless as to what he was supposed to do next other than “clear his mind.”
Isaac felt sure, now more than ever, that this had all been a setup. This was everyone’s revenge upon him. He’d stand on stage while his angry wife and vindictive brother listed his shortcomings. Detailed his public failures. Explained his inadequacies. Maybe pulled down his pants and laughed at the size of his dick — which he’d had enhanced, but still shriveled when he was nervous.
This had been a phenomenally bad idea.
Jameson Gray stepped onstage. He was dressed in his usual finery and began circling around the other three with theatrical gestures.
“Well, here we are on the eve of Shift. They say politics are incestuous. They say politics make strange bedfellows.” Jameson stopped then looked at Micah, Isaac, and Natasha. “Now, just look at the Ryans. They’re proof of both!”
The crowd laughed. Isaac didn’t think the joke was remotely funny. What was the implication? That Natasha was fucking them both? That Micah was fucking Isaac? The first would never be true (or true again) based on Natasha’s furious expression, and the second was figurative and had been occurring for decades. The comment managed to be false and obvious at once.
“Now, have any of you ever seen a vanishing cabinet trick?” Jameson asked the crowd.
“No, never!” said a man in the front row. There was more good-natured laughter.
Jameson’s face registered mock disappointment. “Wait…you have?”
“No, never!” the man repeated, and the same people laughed again.
“Oh,” Jameson said, feigning nerves, looking stage-right as Natasha crossed behind Isaac. “Well, I’m sorry, but that’s all I have for you, and it’s too late to change my act now.”
A few people booed, playing along. Carter Vale, in the front row, made a motion like throwing a tomato.
Jameson looked over. “Natasha? Would you please bring out the cabinet?”
Natasha went behind the curtain, stood out of view to the crowd, and made a few grunting noises. Her eyes were on Isaac: playing her role like a dutiful performer, but still able to stare daggers at the same time.
“Natasha? The cabinet, please.”
Natasha, still out of sight, still staring at Isaac: “It’s too heavy!”
Jameson bit his lip, slapped his hand against his leg, and looked around the room. Finally, he pointed to the man who’d spoken earlier. “You, sir. Could you help her?”
The man walked forward. Jameson picked three more people: two women and another man. All came to the stage then looked Isaac over as if he were in the way.
“Right over there. Please grab hold of a pair of handles on each side, and bring it in. It’s quite heavy, so be careful.”
Natasha had stepped aside and was now smiling toward the four people, gesturing at air. The people moved over with more urging then grabbed hold of absolutely nothing as Natasha directed them. She motioned for them to lift the nonexistent cabinet, then walked beside them as they carried it, pointing.
The four volunteers were awkward at first, but by the time they reached center stage, they were part of the performance. The men huffed, and the women pretended to strain against the imaginary cabinet’s weight. Their acting wasn’t flawless; the carriers in front led too far, and those on the side pushed too close. Clearly, Isaac thought as he watched, this invisible cabinet wasn’t staying a consistent size.
The lead man ran into Isaac without apology, and Isaac found himself shoved aside while the volunteers jockeyed the invisible prop into position. Two of them gave Isaac the evil eye, seeming to wonder why he was loafing around while they were straining and doing all the work.
“Okay, thank you,” Jameson said. “Natasha can’t usually move this cabinet by herself. It’s a new model and very heavy. But it’s an exceptional vanishing cabinet. See?” He waved his hand through the space. “It’s completely vanished already.”
More laughter.
“Would one of you please open the door, so my friend Isaac can get inside?”
One of the men pretended to open a door and hold it for Isaac. After an awkward moment, Isaac stepped into the space. One of the women told him to watch his head on the low door. The crowd chuckled.
Once inside the nonexistent vanishing cabinet, Isaac’s mind wondered just what the hell was going on. This was a horrible idea. The nation was watching, and yet again Isaac Ryan was being shoved around by others, oblivious, looking like he alone hadn’t a clue. The volunteers had decided the cabinet was small, so the four people, who still had their hands on the handles, surrounded him in a huddle. Natasha was off to the side, again near enough Micah to whisper. Every once in a while she’d look at Isaac, her gaze hard and hateful.
Yes. This had been an awful idea.
Jameson circled the group, asking the volunteers to push on the cabinet’s sides, to turn dials, pull levers, and generally prep the nothingness around Isaac for the upcoming vanishing. Isaac didn’t know that there would be this many people around him, or that the stage would be so open.
Jameson told the crowd earnestly that there would be no Beam tricks. No trap doors in the stage. No teleportation apparatus. People laughed at that, too.
“Is your mind clear?” came a whispered voice.
Isaac looked over to see Micah very close, pretending to hold something between two spread arms. The volunteers were a pace away, being instructed to “check the cabinet’s bolts.”
Mumbling, trying not to open his mouth, Isaac said, “What?”
“It needs to get at that recording you made. There’s a jam field around the stage so you are now the only source of local broadcast. Weren’t you listening?”
Isaac had heard Jameson telling a few additional volunteers something about jamming, but his mind had been elsewhere. He saw those people now, monitoring something on their handhelds to prove there would be no trickery. Whatever scanner and projector setup Jameson had, it must be reading Isaac and Isaac alone. The only way to command hoverbots and play a holo recording with a measurable jamming field in place, apparently.
“Maybe if you’d told me ahead of time.”
“He told you to clear your mind.”
“But he didn’t bother to tell me to — ”
“Shh!” Micah hissed, as if he hadn’t been the one to initiate their whispered discussion.
The crowd gasped. Isaac looked up at a wall monitor, which now showed the event’s Beam feed on a three-second delay. He saw the scene onstage with the four volunteers and four participants then watched himself blink from existence for a half second. His moment of invisibility had lasted no longer than a flash, but it had earned the crowd’s attention.
All eyes were on Isaac. The chatter had stopped. Isaac could even make out his mother on her elevated chair, with the dark-haired woman from earlier standing beside her.
“Hey! Which one of you touched the wrong button?” Jameson demanded.
The crowd laughed again, but this time the chuckles were slightly nervous. Apparently, the hoverbot invisibility cloak was convincing, even though Isaac had no idea the things were flying around him. Given that several of the volunteers were centimeters away — and one had touched him since the blink to make sure he was still there — it’d better be convincing. How the hell was he going to walk out of his invisible box, anyway? He might manage to crawl, but if he brushed their legs, he’d be sunk, and look like a fool yet again.
The woman to Isaac’s right brushed his sleeve. Isaac looked over, but she’d already turned back to the magician.
“Okay,” said Jameson. “Thank you for helping me set up my invisible vanishing cabinet. Would you mind giving it a spin to show everyone the back, so
they know it’s not a trick cabinet?”
The volunteers paused, but then pretended to turn the cabinet in a tight circle. Isaac found himself rotating with them, pushing down a bark of shock (to match murmurs from the crowd) as he spun in place. Thousands of bots must have sneaked below his shoes to make him rotate. Isaac wondered if his “open mind” was controlling those bots, too.
“Now, if I could get your help, Micah,” Jameson said.
Micah feigned shock. “Me?”
“Well, yes. Mr. Braemon — ” Jameson nodded toward the big man standing near one of the room’s sides, “ — told me your brother has given you a lot of trouble during this campaign.”
“He and President Vale stole Shift from us,” Micah said.
“I had nothing to do with it,” Vale said, holding up his hands, palms-out. There was more laughter.
“You can’t make a president disappear, though,” Micah told Jameson. “Not without a grassy knoll.”
Isaac might have laughed, but he was too nervous, and Natasha was still staring daggers.
“So maybe we can get rid of Isaac instead. What do you think?”
“You okay with that, Mom?” Micah said, projecting.
Rachel said nothing, so Micah said, “Absolutely.”
“What about all of you?” Jameson asked the crowd. “Would it be okay if we got rid of Isaac Ryan?”
Isaac found himself not liking the way Jameson had emphasized “rid.” The crowd shouted its enthusiastic agreement.
“Okay,” Jameson said. But then Natasha, who’d gone stage left, handed something to the illusionist. Jameson held it up: a long, sharp sword. “But when we do vanishing cabinet tricks, aren’t I supposed to slide swords through the box first?”
The crowd cheered. The woman beside Isaac touched him again. Just checking to make sure you’re still there, her hand said. But Isaac’s eyes were on the sword, which he hadn’t known about until now. How was that supposed to work in a nonexistent cabinet?
There was a flash, and Isaac’s eyes flicked to the Beam feed screen. It flickered again, to black for a moment. The lights flickered to match. Heads looked up and around. Probably part of the act. At some point, there’d be a big distraction, and Isaac would slip away, maybe replaced by his hologram. Seemed like the switcharoo would be easier if anyone had bothered to tell Isaac what was supposed to happen.
The screen flickered again. Now others noticed, moving eyes from the stage to the screen before looking back.
The hand touched Isaac again, possibly anticipating the same trick. He snapped his head around to glare at the woman, barely restraining himself from slapping the hand away.
The screen showed Carter Vale. But it wasn’t Carter in the crowd or Carter from old footage. It appeared to be Carter Vale from a few moments ago, as seen through Isaac’s eyes. A few people noticed then looked at Isaac and Vale in turn.
“Watch your control,” Micah hissed. “Clear your damned mind!”
Isaac wanted to spit back that if something was happening, it wasn’t his goddamned fault if nobody had bothered to tell him what was coming, or what to practice.
The image of Vale vanished, and the normal Beam feed resumed. Isaac’s eyes lingered on the screen, feeling like his fly was unzipped. Had what the screen just shown been a memory of Isaac’s? How was that possible? Was something inside the room (or inside his head) somehow reading his mind and showing it to the room? He couldn’t stand the thought of his head as an open vault.
He met Micah’s eyes and tried breathing slower, but his heart rate had doubled.
Jameson seemed flustered. He wagged the sword to retrain the crowd’s attention then handed it to Micah.
“Look how much Isaac has messed things up,” Jameson said, smiling, looking at the now-flickering Beam screen. His delivery was smooth, but Isaac could tell this hadn’t been part of the trick. Something was wrong. Jameson’s eyes met Isaac’s, almost pleading. He wouldn’t move his mouth and give himself away, but Isaac could read his glance: Get ahold of yourself, Isaac!
Swirling emotions wanted to burst forth in a torrent, but Isaac held himself in check. What the hell did they expect? Keep the idiot in the dark then hook up some ninja mojo to read his mind — ninja mojo on which the entire trick’s integrity seemed to depend? It was a terrible, stupid plan. Why hadn’t they told him how this was supposed to work? Why hadn’t they let him practice?
Jameson’s calm smile went to a burly man by the side of the stage, opposite Braemon’s bulk like a matching bookend.
“Matthew?” Jameson said, “before I show Micah here how to make his brother disappear and get out of Enterprise’s hair forever, we should make sure the feed is working so the watchers can see clearly. Can you check the feed?”
Matthew’s attention was already down, tapping on a handheld, rapping on an access panel affixed to the wall, and Isaac realized: This is a crisis in the making. Jameson and his crew were scrambling, trying to find their feet. Maybe it wasn’t only Isaac’s fault after all. If it fell apart, maybe he wouldn’t be the only one to look stupid.
But Isaac kept looking at the blade in Micah’s hand — the sword that magical tradition said was supposed to be slid through the cabinet to raise the tension.
“There’s some sort of an issue with the feed,” the big crew man said. “Sorry, Jameson.”
“Just go ahead!” someone shouted, his voice slurred by drink.
“Sorry for the difficulties, everyone,” Jameson said.
“It looks like local interference,” Matthew said. “Something in the canvas.”
Another big man had come up beside Matthew, also looking at a handheld.
“It’s not just in the canvas. There’s been fragmentation in this sector all day.”
“This is different,” Matthew said.
“Quark crews are already on it. Here: I just got an update. ‘Expect slowdowns. Redundant protocols will protect all user data and connectivity. We apologize for the inconvenience.’”
“I’m telling you, it’s something local.”
“Forget the feed!” a woman yelled. “Just do the trick!”
Jameson smiled up at her, but to Isaac, the smile looked threadbare. If something was going wrong with Braemon’s canvas — now, of all times — Isaac doubted the trick could just be done. Somehow, Isaac’s mind was broadcasting to control the hoverbots. Somehow, his mind would be the archive that would play the holo-recording to make himself reappear…and that required a canvas, and a connection.
The crowd gasped. Isaac’s eyes went to the screen. He watched himself vanish again, and this time stay gone. Then Micah’s eyes refocused, and Isaac decided he must have reappeared. Isaac’s gaze, meanwhile, had strayed to the room’s rear. His mother didn’t seem surprised in the least. And beside her, the dark-haired woman, Kai, seemed to be ducking behind Rachel, looking furtively for something…or someone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jameson said, “it looks like our vanishing cabinet is having troubles. Maybe it’d be best to — ”
Isaac watched someone appear onstage beside him. It was a hologram of Carter Vale.
The crowd’s eyes moved between the real Vale, in the front row, and the newly appeared hologram. As if to demonstrate which was which, a glitch shimmered through the hologram before it snapped into perfect focus. As before, the hologram showed the Vale from earlier, from Isaac’s memory. It was Vale as he’d looked speaking to Isaac in the corner, just before Isaac had come onstage.
“Honestly,” said the holographic Vale, “I don’t love the idea of raising money for Respero. I mean, just think of what we’d be celebrating.”
Vale, in the front row, glared at Isaac as if he was doing this on purpose. Isaac tried to make desperate shrugging gestures to show he wasn’t at fault, but both of them knew that Isaac was if anyone was. The crowd was seeing a projection of Isaac’s POV stream from their earlier chat, recorded as faithfully as if Isaac had worn a rig to sell the footage later. It was as g
ood a holo as the streams Natasha sold of her concerts, but this was just an ordinary memory. Still, Vale’s eyebrows were knitting with anger, as if Isaac had recorded their private words to play later using an illicit implant.
Holo Vale seemed to lean in. Isaac remembered the moment in real life; Isaac had been contemplating blurting his mission of murder. Thank West he hadn’t. His guts were on display enough as it was.
“I feel like a hypocrite supporting Respero Dinners, Isaac,” the Vale hologram said while the two burly crewmen tapped their handhelds and Jameson Gray shouted orders. “We all know what those little ceremonies are hiding.”
Isaac wanted to run, but the people onstage were holding him in place. If he vanished now, they’d know the trick. But now, they seemed to have a motive other than magic: to hold one of the men who, along with Carter Vale, was fast becoming the reluctant man of the hour.
Isaac wanted to swat at the invisible Fi streaming from his head like an insect. He wanted to erect a firewall that would be impervious to Jameson Gray’s practical magic, if he’d had any idea how. But most of all he wanted to get away before Vale’s recording said the next thing: We all know that Respero is murder.
It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something that anyone — especially the president — should say out loud. Of course everyone knew Respero was murder. Rich people threw fancy Dinners when the time came and pretended it was graduation, but nobody truly walked willingly into Respero…and nobody, accordingly, liked to be reminded. It was society’s dirty little secret, and as many riots had been brewing recently between rich and poor, the coming footage would only multiply the inevitable. A new face for the death penalty didn’t change what it was. No one opted for Respero.
