by Loren Walker
“See? Our partnership is already beneficial.” Smiling, Ozias withdrew the projection, and snapped her Lissome shut.
“Why are you holding her?”
“For you,” Ozias said. “I thought you might appreciate it.”
Already working to appease me, Phaira thought with unease. Everything is a gentle manipulation with this woman.
“Have you already arrested Cohen, then?” she managed to ask.
“No,” Ozias said. “I’d like to confirm your story with him at some point, but not yet. I’m more interested in our imposter.”
She rose to her feet. “So let’s go.”
Phaira followed Ozias through the door of the apartment, past the single guard posted by the entrance, and into the open, against the wind and the swell of commuters. Her borrowed jacket from Jetsun wasn’t thick enough, but she did her best to hold her shivering at bay. She wouldn’t show any weakness to Ozias, especially with the woman so close, her left hand gripping the link between her handcuffs.
With every step, Phaira fought the urge to disarm her and flee. She could take a flying leap and grab hold of that dangling fire escape ladder to her right. She could leap from wall to wall in the next narrow alley until she reached an open window.
Then they stopped. Phaira blinked, taken back to the present. They were standing at an intersection, swarms of people moving past them.
“This is where I leave you,” Ozias told her.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” The detective reached over and grasped the handcuffs. They fell away with the smooth turn of the key.
“You must know that I will just disappear,” Phaira blurted out. “You let me go, you’ll never find me again.”
“Perhaps.” She smiled for the first time. Her teeth were white, straight and brilliant. “Curious to hear the next story you’re ready to tell, Ms. Lore.”
And with that, the detective crossed the street and left Phaira standing on the corner. The handcuffs were gone, but her presence lingered, an invisible bind around her throat. She’d never be free of Ozias.
“Phaira?”
That low, husky, haughty voice. She knew it instantly.
In her mind, her hand shot to CaLarca’s throat. Pedestrians cried out, jumping aside, calling for help as Phaira slammed CaLarca into a brick wall, squeezing with all her pent-up frustration. CaLarca scratched at her arms, yanking backwards, scrabbling to pull away her fingers away. But Phaira didn’t feel anything, just sweaty, burning fury and the rigidness of her body…
“I understand,” CaLarca said quietly, breaking Phaira from her vision. “I would probably have the same impulse, if I were you.”
A wave of exhaustion passed over Phaira. She walked to a brick wall, leaned against it and closed her eyes. She sensed CaLarca doing the same, staying about a foot apart. In the darkness, Phaira felt the sway and pull of waves of people, sweeping past them, the world moving on. She couldn’t form a solid thought. She didn’t want to. But the gnawing sense of responsibility grew in her. She couldn’t ignore it.
“I can’t even imagine,” Phaira finally spoke, “what’s happened in the past few weeks that has led you to be standing here with me.”
She glanced over at CaLarca. For the first time, Phaira noted the black leggings that the woman wore, how they visibly pulsed, and the silver cane in one hand. “Did Renzo make those for you?”
“He did,” the woman said, staring at her feet.
“So, to say thank you, you try to get Cohen arrested?”
“I was angry,” CaLarca said simply. “It was bad judgment.”
“And now?”
“I need to make amends. If you are going back to your family, please take me with you.”
Phaira scoffed. “I need a better reason to put up with you than making apologies.”
“I owe it to Sydel to ensure her safety.”
Phaira eyed CaLarca head to toe. “What’s the threat?”
CaLarca’s mouth pressed tight. She didn’t speak.
“Let’s be clear,” Phaira told her, pushing off the wall. “Getting what you want is dependant on telling me the truth - what’s happened since I left, and what part you’ve played in it. The truth, as plainly as you can deliver it.”
CaLarca’s head stayed low. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll tell you everything I know. At least, everything I can remember.”
II.
As they hitchhiked and hopped trains, making their way to Toomba, Phaira stopped CaLarca at several points in her story to ask if she was being honest.
At first, CaLarca was indignant at the disrespect. Then she had to stop and think. She was so used to measuring the lies in everyone; she didn’t think about how often she’d laid veils over her intentions. The exercise was brutal, but merciful in a way. Going through what happened after the disasterous NINE initiative, step by step, was a process to verify that her memories were true. To prove that she wasn’t a monster.
After she ran from Kings Canyon, fourteen-year-old CaLarca woke in a hospital, severely dehydrated, sunburned, and in shock. A week later, she was home. She refused to speak, or leave her bedroom. But she heard her mother and father, their whispers, shuffling papers behind her closed door. When her parents did come to see her, they radiated with fear. They could hardly look at her.
Her first words were to ask for them to send her away to boarding school. She’d found one by the East-South border, secluded and secure. They agreed immediately. CaLarca’s chest twisted when she saw their relief.
Within days, everything was arranged. Soon, she stood with two bags in the threshold of a grand brick estate on its own acreage, kilometres from any town. Dense forest surrounded the school; students were expressively forbidden to leave the grounds for fear of being lost. There were rules and timetables and uniforms, as laid out by the headmaster in his office. No nonsense tolerated. None to worry about, CaLarca promised, her tone demure.
That night, she broke into his office and pocketed his display of antique rana coins. Then she stole into the night, leaving her possessions behind. There was nothing to hold onto.
The factory sector was perfect. In the old manufacturing towns in the North, no one looked closely at faces, or backgrounds; they just needed able hands and bodies. The clattering, rattling noise of the mechanics deafened her thoughts, and deadened her raw nerves. She worked until exhaustion, so she didn’t dream. But the dread remained of being discovered, of being sent back, or even worse, if someone from the NINE found her. When her anxiety grew too intense, CaLarca travelled to another plant. There were always places looking for strong hands, for someone young and malleable, eager for double shifts.
A year passed. And then ten. No one came for her. Nothing changed.
Not until that one day, in the middle of her shift.
“Hey! Someone is looking for you,” the foreman hollered through her earplugs. “Tell them not to bother you when you’re on the job, or I’ll write you up.”
When CaLarca went outside, wiping the dust and grime from her face, her gloves balled into one hand, a man was waiting. He removed his cap at her approach. Dressed in wool layers, the man looked to be in his early-twenties, though he carried several fine lines around his brown eyes. Brown-black hair cut short, a haze of a beard. Though barrel-chested, he had sharp hollows in his cheeks, the remnants of starvation at some point.
“Cyrah?” he called to her.
She froze. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“You’ve hardly changed at all,” the man said. “It’s incredible.”
Then it hit her. “Ganasan?”
His face flooded with relief.
CaLarca’s brain couldn’t form words. “I didn’t realize it was - how did you find - ”
“I’ve been looking for a long time.”
“For me?” CaLarca stuttered, her body coursing with fear. “Why?”
“Because I made a promise.”
; “A promise?” CaLarca felt so stupid, repeating his words, but she couldn’t process what was going on.
“You don’t remember?” The man’s expression fell.
We’ll run away. I’ll take care of you. Whatever it takes. CaLarca remembered every word the boy spoke, so long ago.
She finally spoke with measured kindness: “We were just children, Ganasan. In an awful situation. You owe me nothing.”
“If you’ll let me,” he told her, his nerves showing through his voice. “If you’ll forgive me, I’d be honored if you came to stay with me.”
“Stay with you?” CaLarca gasped. “Ganasan, please. You’re not making any sense.”
“I know it sounds crazy. But we’ve seen crazy, and people who understand crazy should stick together. You were my only friend in Kings, CaLarca. I want to stay connected to you.”
It was true: not even a glimmer of gray around him. He was being honest.
“I can’t do this right now,” she finally said, painfully aware of how dirty she was. “I have to go back to work.”
“Can I return when your shift is over?” Ganasan asked, twisting his cap in his hands. “Can we talk more?”
“Are you alone?” she accused.
His face went dark. “Of course.”
He understood what she was asking. She recognized him now. His eyes were the same as that eleven-year-old’s, full of determination, and reverence.
CaLarca stared at him, weighing her options. Ten years of life in the factory sector, living on scraps and in the shadows. Ten years of being alone with nothing but her memories, and the occasional spark of Nadi in her hands.
She would be a fool to say no.
* * *
Ganasan owned a vineyard in the South, two days away by train; small, but blissfully remote, acres wide, its border surrounded by forest. He came into a small inheritance as a teenager, he explained to CaLarca, and when he turned eighteen, he took the money, went travelling and purchased the land on sight. He had been working it alone for the past four years, with the occasional help of neighbors, but mostly in solitude. He had no desire to be near the cities, or people in general. Only CaLarca had always been in the corner of his mind, gnawing at him.
So, some weeks ago, he’d left his farm and started tracking her path from manufacturing district to district. It wasn’t difficult. People remembered her green streaks, her black eyes, and her youth. CaLarca still looked like a teenager, even ten years later.
But Ganasan aged normally, she noted, peering at his profile. When he glanced over, she switched her gaze to the land, taking in the greenery, the tinny echo of birds in the distance, the smell of earth, ignoring the nerves fluttering in her stomach.
That night, in the silence of the woods, by the light of the bonfire, she told him what she’d seen that last day in Kings: the blood, the screams, the hand on her head. He, in turn, confessed that during his first Insynn rush, when he had taken Tehmi’s arm, he’d seen the chain of events leading to her death, but he was too afraid to say anything. In the orange glow of the fire, CaLarca watched him struggle with his shame. Her mind turned to the baby, the memory of that warm bundle stuck with her, even more than Tehmi and Joran’s murder.
We harbor the same guilt, she thought. We’re both haunted by deeds not done. We are connected. We always have been.
It was a quiet companionship. She was used to physical work after years in the factory, and quick to learn the farming trade. And she was content in the sweat and silence, the rows to get lost in, the vines a delicate latticework over the fences, how the forest enfolded the land, and it was their own entity. She even liked the little village, five kilometers to the west, with its small stores and white fences. When the weekly errands were done, she would go to the reservoir and sit on its edge, watching the water’s lazy, sweeping foam patterns, ropey seaweed in clusters, still, but vibrant under the surface.
And over the weeks, she and Ganasan drew closer, orbiting around each other. They sat by the bonfire each night, like two old pioneers. He held her hand like a gentleman, and kissed her only when she said yes. One night, when it seemed like Ganasan wanted more, she let it happen. Soon, she found she craved the same. Every step felt natural, and right, and more familiar than she ever would have imagined.
Years passed. The vineyard thrived under two sets of hands, and the occasional hired worker for harvest season. Sales expanded, just enough to keep them stable. And together, CaLarca and Ganasan began to revisit their NINE abilities, prodding, testing, holding onto each other as things sparked to life. Ganasan had more control over his Insynn flashes. They only happened when he willed them to, not with any touch of bare skin. And CaLarca made knives again, and wire sculptures, and pieces of string that she would playfully drape on Ganasan’s back without him knowing.
On their twelfth year together, when spring broke into summer, CaLarca couldn’t shake a new, unsettled feeling. In the shadow of their bedroom, when Ganasan was away, a quick scan of her body almost made her faint: there was the tiniest halo of energy in the middle of her abdomen.
“Do you think he’ll have our gifts?” she’d asked him that night. “Or more?”
“He’ll have something,” Ganasan said. His beard had a sheen of silver to it, those hollows in his cheeks still sharp. “But we can teach him now to use it well, whatever it might be, and to keep it hidden from the public.”
When Bennet was born, CaLarca looked hard and long into his black eyes, a thousand secret fears in her brain, wondering if she was really capable of this. If she was worthy. If she would only ruin him in the end with her selfishness and solitude.
But Bennet grew, and he was quiet and curious; he rolled in the leaves and studied each intently; he was fearless and buoyant, and loved her the best of anyone. And she was content, she realized one day, truly, with her unexpected domestic life.
One day, there was a knock at the door. CaLarca was alone, picking up after Bennet’s flurry of playtime. The knock sounded again.
Curious. They rarely had visitors. A quick glance out of the window showed a craggy-faced old man. She couldn’t recall his surname, but he was a friend of Ganasan’s, she recalled. His property was to the east, maybe four kilometers away. She had to acknowledge him.
Wiping her dusty hands on a towel, she opened the door. The man greeted her. “CaLarca.”
“Yes,” she said as politely as she could manage.
“May I come in?”
“If you’re seeking Ganasan, he’s in the fields with our son.”
“Your son,” the man repeated.
A shimmer came over the neighbor’s face, like a ripple of heat.
Within two seconds, CaLarca manifested a boning knife in her hand, the other palm outstretched to ward him away. “Stay where you are,” she commanded.
The man smirked. “You’ve barely changed at all. How is that possible?”
A pull in the center of her chest. Familiar voice. Something in the way he was looking at her.
“Will you please dissolve that thing? I’m here with a warning, Cyrah.”
Kuri. It was Kuri’s voice, coming from the mouth of the neighbor.
CaLarca stared at him. The knife in her hand trembled. Had he possessed the man? Had he killed him? Or was it an illusion? Tears crawled up her throat. “I don’t want you here,” she hissed. “Not here.”
“I never wanted to see you again, either,” Kuri told her. “But we’re in danger.”
“Who is we?” she demanded.
“All of us from Kings. We can’t hide anymore.”
Inevitable, she couldn’t help but think. Punishment was inevitable. It wasn’t enough that she and Ganasan had expressed their grief, that they tried to make a good, productive life. They couldn’t escape who they were, and what they did in that underground base.
The door creaked open. Ganasan stood in the threshold, holding two-year-old Bennet.
Kuri eyed him up and down. “My,” he deadpanned. “You’ve grown
.”
Ganasan frowned. Catching his eye, CaLarca gestured with her chin. “Kuri,” she said curtly.
Bennet started to wiggle, wanting to get down, but Ganasan held firm. “Did you kill our neighbor?”
“Of course not. I just borrowed his face,” Kuri said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me in if I showed up as myself.”
“Then take off that veil, or whatever it is,” Ganasan commanded.
“No time. We’re being hunted down.”
“By who?” CaLarca exclaimed.
“The Sava Syndicate. Crime family in the North and East. Remember the four kids from Kings, from that day?” he added, glancing at CaLarca. “Up on the cliff? They grew up to be influential, and hungry for answers.”
“So you came to warn us?” Ganasan said flatly. “We had nothing to do with them.”
“They don’t know that,” Kuri said. “The Savas recovered all the records from Kings: Joran’s files, surveillance, everythiung that was left behind. They know our names, our faces and our abilities. They’re in the base now, making preparations.”
“But you -” CaLarca had to work to keep from stammering, her nerves were so rattled. “You killed Tehmi. And Joran. And that family.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Kuri objected, his face growing red. “Tehmi was an accident, I never meant -”
Then Kuri looked at his feet, taking in a long, slow breath. “I wasn’t as skilled as I am now,” he said quietly. “I’m in control now.” He shot a look at Ganasan. “That’s why I came. The Savas are putting together an army to track us down, and you’re on the list.”
CaLarca didn’t have to look at her partner to know what he was thinking. They were so entrenched in their lives here, separate from the world, their own land, their own rules. They couldn’t leave it behind and start anew in another territory. They didn’t want to.
“I’m going back to Kings to investigate the threat,” Kuri continued. “Maybe try to neutralize it, somehow.”
“By doing what?” CaLarca challenged. Bennet began to whine, reaching for her. When she crossed the room and took the child, balancing him on her hip, she felt Kuri’s eyes on her the entire while.
