by J. Kowallis
“A part of me,” I croak, “feels that if he is my brother . . . our brother,” I correct myself, “this whole thing would be easier.”
“What whole thing?”
“Him nearly killing us, not remembering me, wanting to stay there. There’s something inside of me asking, ‘What if he’s not your brother? What if there’s something else there?’ I can’t handle it, Reggie. I can’t see him like that.”
“Ransley,” she says softly, “you can’t see him like what?”
“I can’t.” I stalk toward her. “I can’t help how I feel and it’s killing me! You know, you think you’re helping, but you’re not! Because all this talk is reminding me that those feelings are still there and I’m scared to death that they shouldn’t be. I’m scared to know what’s happening to him because of the way I feel. I don’t want to lose him. I want to save him—to keep him with me. I feel like I’m being selfish perra! And I don’t want to be!”
Reggie shakes her head. “How are you being selfish?”
“Because I don’t want to be his sister!” I yell at her. The breath I draw in rattles my chest. My words rebound against the walls, reminding me over and over how I feel—what I’ve been pushing aside for a week and a half. Then it hits me. It’s only been nine days since I met Roy. How is that possible?
My eyes close and I bite down on my lip. “I can’t deal with this right now.”
“I hate to say this, but you have to.” Reggie stands and walks over to me. She touches my arm and I slap her hand away. I don’t want her pity or her lecturing.
“Listen,” her voice hardens, “if you can’t control your emotions, you can’t be a part of this. If you don’t control them, you’ll kill someone. You’ll compromise everything we’re trying to do here.”
“We?” I spin on her. “Since when has this been a ‘we’? Ever since you and Nate got here it’s been about what you know. What you think we should do. What your plans are. You lied to me! How am I ever supposed to trust you with anything? Dammit, Reggie! You lied!”
“I had to!” she yells back at me. “I wish I could say something to make you feel better. The truth is, I didn’t know if I could trust you. I didn’t know if you would put the general good above one person. Above your desire to save Roy. After what I saw today, I know how you feel, and I’m glad I lied!” Reggie shakes her head, touching her lips. “I wish I could give you some sort of closure. But I can’t. I won’t. It’s time you looked outside the bubble of Roy and deal with this. Talk about it, not fight with me! I’m not . . .” she takes a deep breath, “I’m not trying to be insensitive when I say this, but you need to accept the fact that you might be siblings. We all might be. You’ll need to face it. When the time comes where we look into our past and realize we all have the same parents, will you be able to accept that?”
I want to tell her no. I want to tell her to jump off a cliff. She’s right, though. I hate her for it. Even though she’s right, it doesn’t mean I have to tell her so. For me, right now, it’s only about Roy. I’m making it about him. No matter what I say, or how I say it, she’ll never understand. She has Nate—even if she won’t face it. Because of what Roy and I may be . . . I still may never have what she has.
I keep my eyes closed, my jaw firm. I can’t do this. Not now. I know I will eventually. But right now, I don’t know how I’m going to do that, or how I’m going to deal with it. I’ve been pushing this aside for so long I haven’t even begun to try to process it. And now I’m supposed to do it fast so I can be on Reggie and Nate’s time table.
It would be easier if Roy were just family. Because at least then, he’d be that long-lost brother I never knew. Not . . . that man I can’t forget.
My pulse beats heavily, burning my skin from beneath. I shake my head, because I don’t know what else I’ll say to myself or to Reggie.
I can’t look at her anymore. She’s judging me. I can feel it. I’m the weak one. The one who can’t control my emotions—put them aside for the greater good. All I can think about is myself, and that makes it even harder.
“Reg,” Nate calls from behind the closed door.
I nod toward the door keeping my eyes from her.
“Nate, we’re not done here yet,” she calls back.
“Yes, we are,” I turn to her.
She hesitates, and I can tell she feels like she’s failed. “Ransley, you need . . .”
“We’re done,” I say resolutely.
Reggie looks defeated. I won’t let her control me. Whether or not she can see my future.
Finally she stands. The door opens and slides shut behind her, leaving me in silence. Red hot anger boils in my chest and I force it back down.
I fall back on the bed, my arms laying dead by my side—heavy and tired—and stare at the dark ceiling above. An emptiness begins to grow inside me, like my chest is physically being hollowed out by clawing hands. For brief moments, my heart goes cold, pounds harder, and then freezes again.
―NATE―
“She’s hyperventilating,” he said, rubbing Carmen’s back, wanting Reggie to take over. He wasn’t cut out for this. Reasonable adults could be consoled out of an anxiety attack, at the very least. But this woman wasn’t even responding to his voice.
“For a moment, I thought she might be calming down. Then that sheet fell down and now I can’t get her to relax. Will you close it up? The movement startled her.”
Reggie hurried over to the window and stuffed the sheet back up where it needed to be and shadow overtook the room again.
“Carmen, everything’s all right,” he said, trying to keep his tone soft. “Listen to me, you . . . nut. Take deep breaths.” He demonstrated for her. Breathing in deep, filling his chest, and letting the air leave slowly. “Come on, you can do it.”
“Nate, I’ve been thinking.” Reggie moved over to the couch and sat on the other side of Carmen. “I think we all agree that this reaction,” she pointed to Carmen, “isn’t normal. What if she went through the same thing Roy’s been through?”
Nate frowned and looked down at the woman under his arm. The Public’s sole focus was perfection, attaining it at any cost. There was no way in hell that this person was the perfected version of herself. Roy was a god-like science project compared to this wreck. “What do you mean?”
“Look.” Reggie pulled Carmen’s hair aside, parting it. A deep spread of black bruising spread down the back of her head and large mound of inflamed flesh. “I noticed it earlier. She suffered a major head injury at one point in the chaos. If what we’ve heard about the Nexis is true, it makes sense that Public employees, especially, would have gone through the process.”
He looked at Carmen and lightly brushed the hair back into place. “What does the head injury have to do with it?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they’ve found a way to modify thinking and behavior through computer chips? They certainly tried something similar with me.”
Nate scowled. How could someone put a woman like this through something so invasive? It was disgusting. “Well, then no wonder they put her through that machine, judging on how The Public views people. If this is what came out, she must have been insane before. Someone felt it was their divine mission to attempt to fix this mess.”
Reggie shook her head. “No, that’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think this is her.”
“What? What do you mean?” He frowned at her.
“If they use computer chips, and she hit her head hard enough to damage it, maybe it’s malfunctioned and causing more brain damage. It’s a theory. Something doesn’t feel right about this. They wouldn’t employ someone dealing with neurotic and anxious tendencies like this. Everything scares her. I’m not saying she doesn’t have a right to be scared after all of this, but even a head injury, a concussion, or even amnesia from massive trauma to the head wouldn’t make her like this. She’d still be . . . relatively normal. The room would be spinning, maybe a considerable headache. Carmen’s not functioning.”
“If we could get her to sleep, we might be able to think this through. In the meantime . . .” Carmen started to twist and pull away from him. Her shoulder dug into his ribs and he grunted. “. . . this is a little more difficult to deal with.”
Reggie reached out for Carmen’s wrist, cradled it in her hand to keep Carmen from pulling away and began to softly massage the inside of the wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Activating her pressure points. I read about it on one of the digital reading collections I found about a month ago. I thought maybe . . . it would help me sleep more peacefully. That the visions wouldn’t be overly vivid. Didn’t help me sleep better. Just fell asleep faster.” Reggie lifted her eyebrows mockingly to herself and smiled up at him.
It amazed him how calm she could be. Well, relatively. Certain subjects were still taboo.
One subject. Olivia’s death.
Neither one of them had talked about it. His nightmares were no longer based in Korea. Always in Public One. Every night he woke up in a terror-caused sweat, reaching for any available weapon, ready to kill Lobb. Then, every time he turned to Reggie, to feel someone else’s presence, she was curled up away from him. At the other end of the room. She was there, but not really. The stress ate at him.
They were both hurting. Too much. They both had their own ends. He knew what she wanted—to find out about herself; to find the others. His own goal? To find Lobb and put a bullet through his skull.
Nate brought his focus back to Reggie and watched her three fingers press and rub the divot in Carmen’s wrist. Carmen went limp, her head resting on his knee. He stared at Reggie with wide eyes and rotated Carmen’s body onto her side, laying away from him on the sofa.
“I don’t know how you did it. Good work.”
“I told you,” she smiled at him with a whisper, “pressure points.” Reggie moved to stand up, squeezing Nate’s knee. “Listen,” she looked back at the bedroom door, “will you watch Ransley? I’m going out to see what the city’s like.”
Nate stiffened and started to open his mouth.
“Don’t worry,” she continued to whisper. “I’ll stay out of sight. But we can’t make every decision based on my visions. You know as well as I do. Plus, it’d be best if you stayed with Ransley. I don’t think she wants to see me at the moment.”
Nate took a deep breath. “You can’t go. Stay, and I’ll go. Ransley can stay in the bedroom for all I care.”
“I’m capable of sighting the layout. I’m not a child.”
“I know that, but I shouldn’t have to be the one to babysit Ransley. She’s not my sister.”
Reggie shrugged and her lips pulled down in a soft frown. “She might not be mine either, though. Just keep an eye on things, please?”
He opened his mouth to object, and then shut it. He knew it wouldn’t do any good. Staying cooped up in a small apartment with a woman who was having fits . . . and another who’d hurt her head, was the last place he wanted to be.
“Fine. But stay in contact. I don’t want to have to come searching for you.”
“What? Are you keeping me on a leash now?”
Nate tilted his head and squinted at her. Neither of them knew Public Four. After all he’d been through, finding Reggie hurt or dead would kill him. He tried to avoid thinking of that, usually by attempting to step in and stop her from doing things like this. He wanted her safe.
“You know what I mean.” His voice rumbled cautiously.
Reggie nodded. “I know. I’ll be fine. And I’ll be back in an hour.”
Nate stood to follow her out. He wanted to pull her back. Make her stay. “One hour. That’s it. One minute over and I’m coming after you.”
Reggie rubbed the back of his arm. The touch of her fingers—starting to callous after a few months of Nomad life—sent chills up his arm and eased his mind for only a moment. It was the first time she’s voluntarily touched him in weeks.
She clipped a cloaker around her ears and turned the power on. After letting her hair down to cover the technology, Reggie briskly walked for the door. “I’ll be careful,” she said over her shoulder, the door sliding open.
Nate nodded to her, feeling a pinch in his chest. Reggie disappeared and the door closed behind her.
He turned and looked around. If he had to be stuck in there, he had to do something. Sitting on the couch and watching Carmen sleep didn’t sound like a job he was excessively overqualified for at all.
From inside his pack, he pulled out two tiny black dots. More like stickers than devices. Loops, to hack into the terrace camera feeds. Replay a blank, uninhabited recording. He took one of the second cloakers and wrapped it around his head. Stuffing the two loops in his pocket, he headed for the balcony and opened the door. It slid open with a loud whoosh, a blast of dense air hitting him in the face. With a long look at the streets outside to make sure no guards were out, he jumped up on the railing, balancing himself. From his waistband, he pulled out a small knife and popped the camera off the wall. The small round bubble housed a wireless link to the main building in the center of town. Once he was inside, he attached a dot to the cylindrical white feed supply and closed it back up. After reattaching it to the wall, he repeated the same with the opposite camera.
With both loops active, he took off the cloaker and turned it off. He waved his hand in front of the camera. Neither motion light signaled his movements. It was working.
Back in the living room, he looked around. If the design of the apartment kept the kitchen equipment in the walls behind panels, hopefully there would be a hidden safe or compartment box somewhere. Perhaps there might be some information locked away that Carmen owned. Something that might help them.
He maneuvered to the walls of the living room, tracing the lines with his finger. The grooves were hairline-thin.
If this woman was a respected Public employee, maybe there might be an operations guide to her job, or training. Something that might give them some insight into how Public Four ran.
His palm pressed against a panel and it slid back. A projection screen appeared in front of him with a scroll line of text running across.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3—TRAFFIC ACCIDENT 5TH & D—WEATHER: 13° HIGH, 2° LOW --------------- WARNING --------------- WARNING -------------- ANY CITIZENS WITH INFORMATION ON UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS, PLEASE REPORT TO PUBLIC FOUR GUARDS OR AUTHORIZED PERSONEL ---------------WARNING ------------- WARNING—THREAT LEVEL CURRENTLY LOW.
Another set of text lines started to scroll on the screen and then the entire message restarted. It was a basic information board connection to the government. There wouldn’t be anything to help him there. He moved down the wall and pressed on another panel. When it slid open, a solid slab table extended smoothly from the wall.
Rustling sounded behind Nate. He cringed and turned to look at Carmen. She’d shifted position; however, she still slept soundly on the couch. He let himself breathe, air rushing from his lungs. He didn’t have the energy or patience to deal with Carmen awake again. At least not at the moment.
When he turned around, he traced another set of lines with his fingers, and stopped. “Third time’s a charm,” he mumbled.
Nate placed his palm on a third panel and it slid open, revealing a collection of books and papers. He couldn’t believe it. Real books. Hard cover, paper page, ink type books. They stopped publishing physical books years ago. The cost of paper, printing toner and ink, everything became too expensive. That didn’t even take into account the digital movement started in the late nineties—before he was even born.
/> “What the hell?” he whispered, sorting through each book and sheet.
He reached in, took a stack of books and set them on the table. Why Carmen would have a collection of in-hand books didn’t make sense, but he needed to find out what they contained—why she held onto them.
The first two were old novels. Coincidentally, 1984 by George Orwell—Nate scoffed and set it back down again—and one he’d never heard of, Color Prison Yellow by Timber Conrad. Published 2023. Must have been one of the last hard copy books ever published. He flipped through the others—old Reader’s Digests, instruction manuals, and even a few grungy and tattered receipts.
He glanced at Carmen’s sleeping face and shook his head. “Looks like you’ve got secrets of your own, my insane friend.”
Nate reached in once more to grab another stack and the first one made him stop. The author was Martin Lobb. He felt his stomach churn. His throat closed off. Nate placed the books down on the table and carried the one with him over to a separate couch. Time paused and Nate simply stared at the book. The name on the cover, and the title, Modern Mankind. He didn’t know what he’d learn looking through this book. Although his curiosity piqued, a sensation rippled through him, telling him to throw out the book.
His pointer finger lifted the front cover, carefully, almost to avoid catching a disease by touching its leather surface.
The door to his left smoothly swished open and he glanced up from the book. Ransley wandered into the room. Darkness painted her face. Behind whatever emotion she felt, she forced a weak smile. She opened her mouth to say something, but detoured to a deep breath.
Not knowing what to say to her, Nate looked back down at the book and flipped back the first page. Published in 2019. Lobb would have been in his early thirties. Maybe late twenties.
“What is that?” Ransley asked, slinking around the couch.
Nate put his finger to his lips, motioning to Carmen. “A book. Haven’t you ever seen one before?” he whispered.
