by Dan Rix
Dominic parked behind the warehouse, and two men walked out to meet them. The hoods of their red cloaks covered their eyes.
One man was a whole head taller than the other—Casler Selavio. Aaron’s heartbeat quickened.
Casler signaled for Dominic to roll down his window, and then he leaned in and stared around at the three of them. He paused at Aaron and grinned.
“Glad you could come, Aaron,” he said. In the weak glow of distant street lamps, his face appeared gaunt, chiseled. His eyes glinted out of bottomless pits of shadow.
His eyes darted to Clive, who was taking another hit from the joint. “Is that weed?” he said. “Hand it over.”
Clive passed the joint to Dominic, who passed it to Casler.
Casler stood up, pressed the joint to his lips, and inhaled deeply. Then he breathed out a contented sigh and leaned through the window again. “Everyone out of the car,” he said. “Time for introductions.” He flicked the last burning ember off to the side.
Aaron opened his door and was overpowered by stench. There must have been a sewage treatment plant nearby. He tugged the cloak over his head and staggered to the other side of the car.
The other man was buzzard-like, and for a moment, his fierce yellow eyes targeted Aaron. He wore a gold cross around his neck and a woven sash similar to Clive’s.
Casler wore dozens, all different colors and embroidered with ancient crests. They seemed to indicate his high status in the Juvengamy Brotherhood.
And Aaron became aware, more subconsciously than anything, that a spell-like power emanated from Casler’s proud eyes. He beamed at all of them, and when he placed a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, Aaron moved to stand beside him, feeling calm, blissful even—when a moment before he’d been certain the presence behind Casler’s eyes was not human.
***
“Father Dravin, these are friends of my son,” said Casler, herding them forward like children. “Dominic and Aaron.”
The priest didn’t smile. “Are they Brothers?” he said.
“Just guests,” said Casler.
Dravin straightened his glasses and his eyes flicked to Aaron, but he said nothing.
They walked across the dead field, pitted with gopher holes, and through rows of expensive cars.
Moonlight brushed the back of Aaron’s neck like a whisper. He shivered, with the sudden strange feeling he was being watched. He thought he saw motionless figures in all the cars, in the passenger seats, but it must have been an optical illusion. Aaron passed another car—and froze.
A blue Corvette, just like the one he had seen in front of Amber’s house. Her father’s car. Was this why her parents wouldn’t be home tonight?
Aaron tore his eyes off the license plate, unable to recall the number.
Blinding light spilled from an open doorway in the warehouse, past the mangled, dented steel door.
Before they filed inside, Aaron saw the priest grab Casler’s arm and stop him just outside the doorway. He stood on his toes and whispered in Casler’s ear.
Aaron angled toward them and paused to listen, and because Father Dravin hadn’t noticed him trailing slightly behind the others, Aaron heard every word of their whispered conversation.
“You expect them to believe you?” he said.
“Of course,” said Casler, smiling.
“A child without a half?”
“Half death is a disease, Father, therefore it is curable.”
“He would die of loneliness.”
“Loneliness is not a clinical cause of death.”
“There are other things,” said Dravin. “Things from above. You could never make such a child persist.”
“But Dravin, I have made such a child persist.” Casler swung around, smiled at Aaron, and stepped into the bright warehouse.
***
Aaron’s pulse quickened as he followed the men inside. A child without a half . . . so a cure for half death was possible, and Dr. Selavio was going to demonstrate it tonight. Aaron swallowed and tried not to think about the article he read earlier.
Hot air circulated inside the warehouse. A hundred folding chairs faced a podium, most of them filled, and Aaron noticed immediately what was wrong.
The chairs were filled by men—only men. Not one of them was with his half. They all wore the same red cloaks with sashes. The murmur of only male voices, like a constant growl, was a sound Aaron had never heard before.
The three of them, Clive, Dominic and Aaron, filed into a row near the front. Clive shook hands with the men around him.
Aaron scanned the audience for Amber’s father, but there were too many faces, their identities lost under red hoods. Coincidence or not, the blue Corvette had gotten him to thinking about Amber and her disturbing, impenetrable life. There was so much she hadn’t told him, and now, as Aaron sat in the cult’s secret warehouse, her secrecy stung like betrayal.
A moment later, Father Dravin stepped behind the podium and took hold of the microphone. He peered around the room, hawk-like, until the conversations trailed off.
“Schrödinger’s gift,” he began. “The gift that keeps on giving. Your half is your slave; cherish her, and the depth of her loyalty shall touch your heart.” Dravin smiled. “Please look to the Brother next to you and recite the creed.”
The din of low voices and sliding chairs filled the warehouse. Aaron crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling. Stupid cult formalities.
Dominic and Clive had already paired up. A hand gripped Aaron’s arm, and he glanced over as a wrinkled old man settled into the seat next to him. The man started to speak.
“I am master and keeper of my half—” He paused. “Eh? You got to speak up son.”
“Keeper of your half?” said Aaron in disbelief. “That’s how it starts?”
A deep chorus resonated around them as everyone else recited the creed.
“Eh?” The man cupped his hand behind his ear and leaned closer. “You don’t know it? Listen closely,” he said, and then his gruff voice articulated every syllable. “I am master and keeper of my half. So was my father, and so too shall be my son. Bind me to my birthright, brother, I shall bind you to yours . . . ”
The old man was oblivious that everyone else in the warehouse had finished.
At last, there was quiet throughout the warehouse—an embarrassed, echoing silence. Aaron pulled his sleeve out of the man’s iron grip. He caught Dominic’s gaze and rolled his eyes, then slumped in his chair and tugged his hood until it covered his face.
Father Dravin nodded, pushed his glasses up his nose, and continued his talk. “Eighty years later, the clairvoyant channel is stronger than Schrödinger could have dreamed, and each new generation knits it tighter . . . ”
So this was the Juvengamy Brotherhood—men who thought their halves were slaves. It made sense that Clive was here, but why Dominic? Aaron shifted, and his cloak peeled away from the chair, stuck with sweat.
“Unlike our bodies, clairvoyance lasts forever, which makes our commitment to forging strong channels at birth all the more pressing . . . ”
Dravin finished an incomprehensible philosophical lecture an hour later, and there were sighs of relief as the men rose for intermission. They congregated along the back wall at tables laid with whisky and crackers. Badly in need of fresh air, Aaron slipped out a back door.
Outside, dark clouds swallowed the full moon. Before he could sift through his thoughts, though, Aaron heard a muffled roar of applause inside the warehouse. The door unlatched, and Clive poked his head out. “Harper, get inside,” he said. “It’s time for my father’s demonstration.”
***
Back inside the warehouse, chairs tipped back as the audience stood to cheer for Casler. The doctor leaned against the podium, let his hood fall to his shoulders, and flashed his dazzling grin. A dozen men lined up to shake his hand and congratulate him, but there were too many and he waved them all back to their seats. While his standing ovation roared on, he pointed to different peo
ple in the audience and winked.
Aaron squeezed into their row and sat in the empty seat next to Clive. The applause trailed off.
“A quick demonstration—” Casler boomed, and he produced two vials from the pocket of his cloak, a bottle of red dye, and an eyedropper. Each vial was half-full of a clear liquid. Then he hoisted a blowtorch onto the podium, crumpling Dravin’s notes.
“May I have a volunteer?”
A palpable excitement rippled through the crowd as Casler picked his volunteer from a dozen hands—a man in the seat in front of Aaron—and handed him one of the vials.
“Hold that up so everyone can see,” said Casler.
Aaron leaned forward, as the man held up a four-inch long glass vial exactly like the one Clive had brought to the beach. A chill fluttered down his spine.
Casler stepped back to the podium and held up his own vial. It was open at the top like a test tube. “Mr. Lilian, is that vial sealed?”
“Yep.”
“So there’s no way for anything to get out?”
“I’m wondering how stuff got in,” he muttered.
Laughter trickled nearby, but Aaron’s body had gone rail stiff. He was sitting directly behind Amber’s father—whose cloak, he noticed, was just as decorated as Casler’s.
Casler grinned. “Excellent. Now watch closely.”
He filled the eyedropper with red dye and held it over his own open vial. Before he released it, he peered stoically at his audience. “You are about to witness something spectacular—”
Then he squeezed the dye into his vial, and Aaron heard gasps, mutters.
“Mr. Lilian, hold that up so everyone can see.”
Red dye swirled inside the vial in Mr. Lilian’s hand, the same dye in Casler’s vial.
Casler didn’t wait for the chatter to stop. He lit the blowtorch and propped the open vial in the blue flame. The crowd waited anxiously. Half a minute later, the liquid boiled. The liquid in Mr. Lilian’s hand bubbled also.
In two minutes, the liquid in Casler’s vial had boiled away completely.
And the vial in Mr. Lilian’s hand was also empty.
Casler smiled and collected the vial back from him.
“When I put dye in one, it colored both. When one boiled away, they both disappeared—why?” He chuckled. “Because the molecules of both vials exist in a state of quantum entanglement.”
The audience sat in dumb silence. Casler paced the stage. “But the demonstration was merely an analogy. I’m sure you’ve guessed what for—”
He peered around at them all. “The clairvoyant channel. Only instead of test tubes, you have living, breathing human beings. Instead of clear water, you have clairvoyance. Drop ink into a man, and his half will feel it.”
“Dr. Selavio—” A hostile voice drawled from the corner. Dravin. “What do you suppose the halves feel if their clairvoyance boils away, as you demonstrated here?”
Casler held out his hand to silence the hisses. “A human being is not an open test tube,” he said.
“Right. I suppose you’d have to cut a hole in one first,” said Dravin.
“Nor are they made out of glass, Father.”
“But you do have to cut a hole,” said Dravin. “Am I mistaken?”
“Just poorly read,” said Casler. “As I announced at Monday’s press conference, I aim to seal the hole created by half death, not the other way around.” Casler beamed at them, despite their somber expressions. And then he stared straight at Aaron. “In fact, I’ve sealed a boy who should have died—a boy who had no half.”
The mutters trailed off.
“For eighteen years, his condition has been kept a secret, but now he sits in this very room. Now he will come before us.”
Aaron wasn’t sure he’d heard him right.
Casler scanned the wide-eyed and quiet audience. “I invited him tonight, although—” Casler looked in Aaron’s direction again and chuckled. “I wasn’t entirely sure he would come.”
Sweat prickled on Aaron’s face.
“On March 30th, eighteen years ago,” said Casler, louder now. “I severed this boy’s channel, sealed the leak—and saved him from half death.”
Aaron watched in horror as his life unraveled before his eyes. The article. He should have known tonight was a trap, that he would be exhibited before the Brotherhood as Casler’s twisted science experiment, as the boy without a half. An anomaly of the living world. There were a dozen seats between him and freedom—too many. They’d stop him.
Once again, Casler scanned his audience and stopped at Aaron, still beaming, full of pride. Others were turning in their seats, trying to get a look at him. “And now,” he said, “let’s have him come forward—”
Next to Aaron, Clive tensed. He was going to hold him if he ran. It was an ambush.
Casler raised his arm and pointed, and Aaron gaped, petrified, down the length of the man’s finger as it bored into him like a spotlight.
Clive shifted again. He edged closer, his arms flexed.
But Aaron wasn’t about to be taken by a cult in a dark warehouse and paraded as a freak.
A dozen seats. A dozen grown men. Aaron stood, and his chair toppled backwards. He balled his fists, ready to fight, as Casler spoke.
SEVEN
2 Days, 11 hours, 11 minutes
“I would like to present my son, Clive Selavio . . . ” He saw that Aaron had stood and trailed off.
Aaron froze. Slowly, he stared around the warehouse at a hundred puzzled faces, and the thumping of his heart echoed, as if amplified over a loudspeaker. He faced the podium again, Casler—and they stared at each other in shock across three rows of blood red hoods.
Clive grabbed his cloak and tried to yank him back down. “Aaron,” he spat. “Sit down! You’re ruining it!”
Aaron no longer had a choice. He plowed toward the aisle, shoved aside knees, and stumbled. Clive grabbed his cloak and it ripped off his shoulders. Without it he felt naked, exposed, with only jeans and a T-shirt protecting him from a hundred pairs of gleaming eyes. He kept going, vaguely aware of someone rising behind him—and acutely aware of Casler’s gaze drilling into the back of his skull.
Finally, he lunged through the door and stumbled into the night. A moment later, Dominic ran onto the field after him.
“Number eleven, you can’t just leave!” he yelled.
“Yeah—” Aaron spun, and his face burned with sweat. “Then stab me.”
“This is a big moment for Clive. You walk out on him, you walk out on Dr. Selavio, you walk out on us,” said Dominic.
“Can I throw a ‘fuck you’ in there too?”
Dominic just raised his eyebrows, then shook his head. “That’s a big mistake, number eleven.”
Aaron marched toward the street.
“A very big mistake,” Dominic muttered, before slipping back into the warehouse.
Aaron walked under the blotted out moon, between dark, hungry-looking Cadillacs.
He had gotten it so wrong.
No shit the date in the article matched his birthday; March thirtieth was Clive’s birthday too. Dr. Selavio had tested the device on his own son, not on Aaron . . . and, according to his speech, cured him of half death. A chill crept up Aaron’s spine.
He was now outside the warehouse, missing the crucial truth—and in fifty-nine hours, he was due at the Chamber of Halves. Aaron reached the road and began to jog, then to sprint. Anything to burn off his adrenaline. The orange streetlights swam overhead, and a humid wind whipped his hair. He passed parked cars for several hundred feet, then his thighs gave out and he keeled over, gasping for breath.
A boy who had no half, Dr. Selavio had said—no doubt just rhetoric to play up his cure for half death. Because it didn’t make any sense. Or did it? Technically, children were born halfless all the time. Those babies were always stillborn, though—
Aaron jolted upright, distracted by the car parked next to him. There was someone in the passenger seat.
&nbs
p; He approached the window, heart pounding. But it was too dark to see. He leaned closer, pressed his forehead to the glass, and waited while his eyes adjusted. When they did, he jerked his head back.
For several agonizing seconds, a woman peered at him blankly through the glass, emotionless, her gaze eerily vacant. Aaron returned her stare, fighting the urge to look away—until he realized there was nothing staring at him. There was nothing behind the woman’s eyes, no spirit, no life, only a lonely cavity where a person should have been. A hole.
And Aaron understood the hideousness of juvengamy.
The woman’s half was in the meeting, whom she had joined with as an infant. After juvengamy, most of the clairvoyance linking their bodies he had come to possess. Hardly anything was left inside her. She was a shell, his slave, and he her master.
***
After school the next day, Aaron staggered out of Health class into a humid Thursday afternoon, still haunted by the woman’s ghostly eyes.
People said the discovery of halves had cured humanity of all that . . . The atrocities of war, slavery, crimes against humanity. Now there was a whole new kind of genocide.
Juvengamy.
It was the sacrifice demanded of all the Brotherhood’s members. Now he understood why it was so illegal.
But worst of all, Amber’s father was an honored member like Casler, of pure juvengamy blood and close to the potentate.
Which meant what for Amber?
While he drove home, the last sliver of sunlight smoldered behind a storm cloud, withering away to nothing—like his dwindling hope that she would be okay.
Once again, Aaron counted down the hours until he could see her. From his room, he watched the trees darken across the street, denied a sunset as rain clouds blackened the sky prematurely.
By midnight, though, the storm had blown south. After an evening of overcast sky, the stars were teasingly bright. Aaron parked on Loma Sierra drive and leapt from his Mazda, and Amber appeared in his arms. Her silken hair swirled around them.
Holding her was euphoria. The cool feel of her skin and the hot, summery smell floating off her body was enough to make his head spin. But best of all, she was safe. For now.
