The Walls of Orion

by T. D. Fox

  The constant undercurrent of adrenaline—not to mention the physical strain of fighting the Change beneath her skin—must’ve thrown her into survival mode. All she could think about was how hungry she was.

  Courtney couldn’t help watching Margo as she ate. The little girl stared down each bite of cereal before gulping it off the spoon. W didn’t look at either of them, focused as he was on his files. Margo ate the entire bowl with slow deliberation, staring with rapt attention at the back of the cereal box. She ignored Courtney. Finishing her bowl, she scooped it up and licked the crumbs from the inside. Then she slid off her chair. Grabbing the cereal box to her chest, she stood beside W.

  W glanced down. Margo didn’t look at him, still studying her cereal box, but he set down his files. He rose and strode to the door. She followed him. He pulled a key from his pocket, turned all three deadbolts, and undid the lock beneath. It swung open. For the briefest second, Courtney snatched another tantalizing glimpse of the hallway beyond. Then W stood back, blocking her view. Margo walked past him. Hugging her box of Cheerios, she headed out into the hallway without a glance back.

  Courtney watched the door click shut behind her. The deadbolts slid back into place. And the key returned to W’s pocket.

  She willed him to look her in the eyes as he returned to the table. He didn’t.

  “Who is Margo?”

  He sat down. “I believe you’ve met her already.”

  “She’s a street kid. I gathered that much. But what is she to you?”

  W reopened his file. “Why does she have to be anything to me?”

  “In my experience, serial killers don’t go around handing out cereal boxes to homeless kids.”

  “Sounds like you have a lot of experience with serial killers.”

  Courtney shut her mouth. Against her will, her eyes traveled back to the door. Somewhere behind it, Margo was padding down the hallway toward the stairs, or a rickety old elevator, out into the morning air and into freedom.

  Her insides squirmed. The question jerked off her lips before she could think. “Could I make a phone call?”

  W’s eyes snapped to hers. The swiftness of the movement startled her; he hadn’t looked at her all morning. Though his face held no hint of an expression, she sensed suspicion.

  “I’m supposed to be working today,” she clarified. “My boss will wonder where I am. And my friends. It’s been more than a day; I missed a meet-up with my friend two nights ago, and Jasper...” She swallowed. “I might be classified as a missing person by now. Could I just let them know I’m okay?”

  He watched her.

  “Look, I don’t know where we are.” She struggled to keep the desperation out of her voice. “It’s not like I’m going to send up an S.O.S. or tap out an address in Morse Code. I just want to let them know I’m not dead in a gutter somewhere.”

  W closed his file.

  “Please,” she begged. “At least let me call my little brother. He just lost his dad. You said so yourself, he needs his sister.” Her throat tightened. “I’m all he’s got. I need to know he’s okay. Please.”

  Without a word, W rose and left the kitchen. He disappeared into the bedroom. Courtney stood, anger flaring. She debated stomping after him, torn between frustration and despair. A minute later, he returned with something in his hand. He passed it to her across the table.

  “Make it quick,” he said.

  It was a cheap burner phone, an old brick of a thing that probably didn’t have more than a few minutes. Courtney touched her thumb to the old-fashioned keyboard, suddenly immensely grateful she’d memorized her brother’s number. She tapped it in and held the phone to her ear. As she did, W came around the table.

  She jumped when he stepped into her personal space. Experience told her not to step back—she didn’t want to look skittish, not right now. The electronic ring trilled in her ear. W tipped his head slightly, eyes fixed on a point beyond her, and she realized he was listening to the ringing too. She pulled the phone away from her ear and found the speakerphone button. The ringing filled the kitchen. W didn’t move back. Swallowing, Courtney looked at the floor and forced herself not to lean away. He was probably prepared to snatch it from her if she tried anything.

  “Hello?” a voice answered on the fifth ring.

  “Michael!” For a moment she forgot about W. “Mikey, it’s me. Are you okay?”

  Silence.

  “Mike?”

  “Where are you?” Her brother’s voice was flat. Dead, almost.

  Courtney looked up at W. He was watching her again, that eerie lack of expression setting off warning bells in her head.

  “I’m with a friend,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “At Joey’s.”

  Relief filled her. His best friend from school. “You’ve been there since—?” The words got stuck.

  “Yeah,” Michael replied. “His mom’s letting me stay here ’til... I don’t know.”

  Courtney shut her eyes. Her eyelids burned. “Are you okay?”

  Silence again. Then: “Yeah.”

  “Mikey, I’m so sorry I haven’t... I wanted to be there.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not. I promise, I’m going to—”

  “You went to your friend’s after you found out?”

  “What?”

  “Not Dina, right?” His voice carried an edge she’d never heard before. “’Cause she came by looking for you. Jasper was here too.”

  “No.” Courtney fumbled for something to tell him, anything that wouldn’t make her seem like the worst sister—worst friend, worst girlfriend—in the world. “I’m staying with someone else.” More silence. “Something happened that I had to take care of. I have to stay until I get it figured out. Then I promise I’ll come get you.”

  The phone was quiet for so long, Courtney feared she’d lost the call. Then Michael spoke in that flat voice again:

  “Actually, Joey’s mom said I can stay here as long as I need to. So, you don’t have to. Stay with your friend or whatever. Hope you get stuff figured out.”

  Her throat squeezed. “Michael—”

  “I gotta go.”

  “Mike, wait—”

  Beep.

  Courtney stared at the wooden floor, chest constricting. W reached forward and took the phone. She looked up. He was watching her with a calculating gaze.

  The anger was easier to stand on than the pain. Courtney poured all the heat she could into her stare.

  “You wanted the phone call,” W said.

  “My brother thinks I abandoned him!”

  “His reaction was understandable.”

  “You kidnapped me. I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “No, you didn’t,” W acknowledged, voice flat. “Maybe you’d prefer if I’d left you to AITO. So those scientists could pick you apart. Or if I’d let you go a little too soon, so you went and Changed in front of your brother. If you ripped him apart and came back into yourself just in time to see the damage you’d done.”

  Courtney flinched back. “I would never hurt Michael.”

  “You wouldn’t. But you’re not you when you Change. You’re not in control. Not at first. Some never get it back.”

  “You said I resisted the Change last night. I’m getting control.”

  “You are, faster than most. But do you wanna risk that? Is it worth it?”

  Courtney bit her cheek. She tore her eyes away from his.

  “I thought not.”

  “I can’t just leave him,” she whispered to the floor.

  W sighed. “You’re a good sister. This will blow over. He’s what, eleven? He can’t hold a grudge forever.”

  Her throat felt too tight to reply. My grudge started at eleven.

  W moved back, pocketing the phone. He turned away.

  “Your progress is notable,” he said, scooping up the files from the table. “I doubt you’ll have much longer to wait.”

  “To wait for what? Until
I’m not your responsibility anymore?” She crossed her arms. “Why am I your responsibility, W?”

  He returned the files to the drawer under the counter. The one with the padlock.

  “Is it because I’m a Changer?” She stared at the back of his head. “I’m a nobody. I don’t turn into anything big enough to be of any use to your super-secret crime organization or whatever it is you’re building. Why do you care what happens to me?”

  At his silence, she dug her fingers into her arms. Pulling in a huge breath, she released them, letting them swing useless by her sides. She walked to the window.

  The city skyline loomed blue and dark. W had closed the window since she’d flung it open yesterday, but it was still unlocked. She pushed open the glass. A chilly, invigorating wind rushed up over her wrist and through her hair, carrying with it the smells and sounds of the city below.

  Courtney stood there in the cold. She breathed in the scent of rain. An echo swirled in. The distant cry of a pair of kids arguing over something on the street, the sound of their mother shushing them. Far below, she could see what looked like a hot dog stand. A little family bickered over what they wanted. A father, mother, daughter, and son stood in their puffy raincoats. Courtney watched them pay for their hot dogs and cross the little intersection, until they were out of sight.

  “Recoup and rehab,” W suddenly said.

  He spoke from somewhere behind her, close enough to make her wonder if he was looking out the window too. She didn’t turn around. “What?”

  “That’s what I do with Changers,” he said. “Recuperation of the body. Rehabilitation of the mind. Then, we reinvent.”

  “Reinvent?”

  “Yes. The old you dies, the new you is born.”

  She let out a sharp breath. “You mean you brainwash them. Into joining your little team.”

  “No. I help them discover who they are. They choose their own way after that.”

  Pinpricks of raindrops began to dust the window.

  “Who you were, before the Change,” W continued. “Has to evolve. You can’t go back. As much as you want to, you can’t go back.”

  Courtney’s throat ached in a funny way. She watched the corner of the building where the little family had disappeared. More rain swept in, prickling her arms.

  “So, the question remains. Who are you, Courtney?”

  There it was again. It was the second time, ever, he’d used her name. Courtney stared out the window as the rain fell in thicker drops. One landed on her cheek.

  A student. That’s who she’d been, before the barista just looking to make rent. Courtney the smart one, with the scholarship. The kid who wanted to be a doctor the minute Dr. Wong let her listen to the other end of the stethoscope when she was nine. Courtney, the med student with a bright future in a dark city.

  Courtney, the girl with the chip on her shoulder from her dad. The girl the other kids whispered about, whose mom left during Quarantine and got stuck Outside. Whose dad got arrested for burning down their old apartment in a drunken stupor. Courtney, the girl who moved out at seventeen after a beer bottle shattered on her bedroom door. The girl whose good grades couldn’t save her. Who had to drop out when her credit evaporated. The girl who watched her peers move on and graduate with flying colors, spreading all over Orion City to do the good work of medicine.

  Courtney, the girl who got left behind. By... everyone.

  “Identity theft is a funny thing,” W said.

  Courtney reached up and wiped her eyes, subtly enough she hoped he wouldn’t see. His voice was soft—she had to strain to hear it over the rain.

  “A lot of people get it into their heads that they can take it from us, real young, and assign us one of their choice. Sometimes we never get to see what our real one looked like. After that, we just swap identities over and over, trying to shake off that first one that sticks like gum on a shoe. It’s like a shadow. You can’t get rid of it. Until the day you find yourself stuck at a pitch-dark dead end, surrounded by so much black your shadow doesn’t even show up anymore. That’s the day the lucky few of us get to remake ourselves. We can pick what shadows we want. Or don’t want. When you’ve got nothing but rubble, you can build whatever the hell you like, or leave the dust behind for good. You can finally walk away. It’s a sick kind of freedom, but it’s freedom.”

  Courtney closed her eyes. She listened to the sound of the rain, washing away the footprints of the little family below. A faint clang of metal made her look down again. The hot dog stand was closing up. The vendor, huddled under the awning, tugged the metal covers down over his steaming pans and rolled the cart away. Courtney watched the rain falling on the empty intersection for a long moment.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” she asked. “I’m not interested in being reinvented. You’re not going to remake or remold me or whatever it is you do to those Changers on the streets. I don’t want to become one of you.”

  “And I won’t ask you to,” W said. “Once you’re ready to go back to your world, I plan to take myself out of it. In fact, after you leave this place, I don’t expect to ever see you again.”

  Good, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t get it out.

  W’s shoes scuffed the floor as he turned. She heard his footsteps walking away.

  “It’s up to you to figure out who you are after this,” he said. “Let the rubble fall where it will.”

  She kept her eyes on the rain. It took a few moments to realize her focus was no longer on the building storm, but on the sound of his footsteps fading.

  19. THE NAME

  ANOTHER DAY PASSED. A second night. A second terrifying dream.

  Courtney awoke in the darkness with her heart jack-hammering in her throat. She dove for the light. For several minutes, she sat there on the edge of the bed, waiting for her pulse to slow. The tears took longer to press down.

  There was no way to tell what time it was. It seemed like hours passed before she decided she wasn’t getting back to sleep. Pushing herself off the bed, she shivered at the chill of the floor, and bent to snatch a blanket from the pile on the ground. She pulled it around her shoulders.

  A light glowed in the crack under the door. She headed toward it.

  The bare bulbs in the kitchen ceiling blinded her. She squinted with a hand across her eyes in the doorway, trying to decipher whether or not she was alone.

  She wasn’t. At least... not fully.

  Surrounded by a mess of files, W slumped at the kitchen table. The backs of his knuckles dug into his cheekbone. His eyes were closed. A pen sat a few inches from his fingertips, like it had rolled away.

  Curiosity defeated caution, and Courtney tiptoed forward. He didn’t move as she approached. As she neared, she caught the sound of his long, even breathing. The faintest of snores.

  A soft, very sleep-deprived giggle sneaked up her throat before she could stop it. She pressed a hand over her mouth. W didn’t stir.

  Falling asleep on the job. What a very... human thing to do.

  She crept a little closer. Nearly all of the files on the table overlapped in some way, most of them far too close to his hand to risk sliding away. She lifted her gaze to the counter. A jolt ran through her. The drawer beneath the counter—the one she’d seen him lock—hung slightly ajar. A centimeter or two, enough to cast a shadow on the recesses within.

  She tiptoed around the table. Breath held tight, she eked it open. The rolling mechanism rumbled. Wincing, she glanced back at W. He remained motionless. Courtney let out her breath and opened the drawer a bit further. Reaching inside, her fingers brushed the stack of files. She tried to flip through them, but they didn’t bend well in the tiny space, and she wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Screw it—she pulled the whole stack out.

  Okay. Heart beating fast, she started to leaf through. S.J. K.M. B.L. The initials flickered past her fingers. She kept her eyes trained for J.W., but one of the folders caught against the others, and she found herself peeking at the contents.<
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  Day 348 of human trials.

  Subject L is showing signs of rapid deterioration.

  Appeared symptom free after first injection. Intestinal failure, liver failure and kidney failure after second injection. Subject pulled from the program.

  Cardiac arrest 14 hours later. In autopsy, heart was found fused with left kidney.

  Time of death: 0755 hours.

  Courtney stared at that last line. Her eyes slipped to the doctor’s footnote.

  Subject L’s age noted. 45-year-old male. Compared with last two failed trials, there seems a correlation that the younger the subject, the more adaptable the DNA to the gene serum. Cells appear resilient to theriomutation.

  Theriomutation. She’d seen that word somewhere before. A fuzzy memory of a computer screen surfaced. A certain late night, not too long ago, spent researching the Whistler... A list of dead victims. She remembered none of the names, but that word sparked something. One of the victims, a doctor, who had come to study the effects of the virus. She’d gotten her PhD in a long word Courtney hadn’t recognized at the time. The theory of theriomutation.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose. She glanced back at W. Was he somehow involved with the White Coats? That shady group of scientists that had snuck into the city after Quarantine, an organization everybody heard whispers about but nobody wanted to acknowledge. Was W a White Coat? Of all people.

  Maybe you’d prefer it if I’d left you to AITO.

  No. W was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a White Coat. If it weren’t for him, she’d have ended up just like that boy in Chinatown. Another Changer dragged off the streets, vanishing into some secret lab. She shivered, and glanced through the next file. K.M.

  Day 794 of human trials.

  Subject M. Male, 18 years, volunteer from United States Navy.

  Withstood all six injections. Minimal physical side effects. Cells successfully underwent rapid theriomutation. After four controlled sessions, subject shows no signs of DNA breakdown or skeletal deterioration. Organs are functioning normally.