Blood, Ink & Fire

by Ashley Mansour

  “Go on. Say it.”

  “No. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Yes, you did. You were going to say that John would be alive if you had stayed.”

  I stare at the ground and nod. I don’t know what to say. Ledger and John. I love them both. How could I even begin to contemplate a choice between having only one of them alive?

  “I know you may regret what happened that led me to you, Noelle. But I don’t. I never will. Finding you in this body was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s the greatest thing that will ever happen to me. Our agreement last night doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”

  “It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”

  “No?” Ledger says. “Well, you wouldn’t know it by what I just saw.”

  “You were the one who wanted us to shut this off, turn our feelings into dust. Not me.”

  “Fair enough. I’m glad you’re having an easier time with it than I am.”

  I look up at him. His eyes are drawing me closer. With everything I have, I resist throwing myself into his arms and telling him that I’m not having an easier time, that the kiss was supposed to be him all along. Because I don’t want to lose this moment. I don’t want to fade away into a vision and miss it.

  “There’s something you need to understand. John didn’t die so I could be with you. That’s not how it works. John died because of the enemy. Because Fell killed him.”

  “Then how do you explain it, Ledger? How do you explain the reason you’re here?”

  “That’s easy,” he says, smiling that heart-wrecking, bittersweet smile. The one I still don’t understand. “I’m here because you needed me to be. Remember the reader needs the book as much as the book needs the reader. Without you, I am nothing . . .”

  Ledger is right. I need him. Maybe I always needed him. And now like a gift knocking at my door, ready to accept me, to take me on, tattered and torn up as I am, I’m still trying to push him away. I’m being incredibly stupid. And shortsighted. It doesn’t matter how Ledger got here to me. It happened, and there is no going back.

  Is it possible to want two separate things to coexist, even if they become impossible simultaneously? Ledger and John could never be alive at the same time. And yet that doesn’t stop my heart wishing that they were. That’s just being human. We know what we want and why we cannot have it, yet it does not stop the wanting. We yearn for the impossible. The illogical. The paradox. And we do it with a kind of complex, tragic beauty unique to only us. This beauty, I realize, is what we are protecting. This is the thing that can only be told in the words that belong to us. The things we write. The books that are made of our flesh and our blood and ourselves. These tomes of our twisted, paradoxical human stories are worth fighting for, worth dying for.

  “You can’t go back, Noelle. And now here we are. And we have to face this, one way or another,” Ledger says.

  “You don’t have to face them. It’s me. Just me. I’m the one that made the deal.”

  “Noelle, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stand and fight to protect you from Fell. To keep you safe from them until my last second on this Earth.”

  “You can’t!” I shout through tears. “No one can. Fell is unstoppable, Ledger. No matter where we go, Fell will find us. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “We can’t let that happen. That’s why you have to protect yourself from them. You cannot surrender.”

  “Then you and everyone I care about will be killed!” I shout. “How could I let that happen, Ledger? How? If you know another way, please tell me!”

  Ledger takes my arms in his hands and pushes up my uniform, exposing my bare skin. I’m breathless. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago.”

  “Ledger, stop! We agreed.”

  “I know and I don’t care. You’re too important to me. I can’t just let you give yourself to them!”

  He eyes my bare wrists. Now I’m the one flinching. “Please, this isn’t the time or the place.”

  “It has to be now!”

  It’s the first time I’ve heard him sound really truly frightened. I tear myself from him and back away, knowing what he will try, but it’s too late. He catches me and pulls me into him, his intoxicating warmth stilling me. His mouth hovers above my right ear. “You need to see this.”

  “Why now? Why here?”

  “Because it’s the only chance I have to convince you. You need to see what they will do. And there’s only one way I can show you.”

  “Ledger, please!”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “But I cannot let them take you. I cannot let you surrender.”

  He wraps his hands over my bare skin and pulls me to him. And then without knowing how or which of us exactly did it, our lips find each other perfectly, like this moment had been written for us, preimagined in the book of life since the dawn of time. We were always going to come together, right here, just like this. The thing itself is so passionate, so desperate, I suddenly understand its meaning.

  This is a kiss.

  As much as I don’t want to let him in, I cannot help it. I feel his soul all around me, his strong hands cradling my back, his lips caressing mine. He pulls me into the vision so fast I can barely move.

  “I love you.” I hear him whisper from far away. And even though everything around me is dark, I can still feel him with me.

  “I’ve loved you since the very beginning and way before it. You’ve never not been with me. You’ve never not been the one I see. You’re everything I can remember, Noelle. I cannot let you go.”

  NOELLE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The lines of people stretch for miles. I am hovering in the air with the vantage point of a bird. But just like these people, the bioslice contains me. Soon I’m on the ground, and I can see their faces. These can only be the faces of one kind of people: people making an incomprehensible choice.

  “One at a time!” shout the guards as they usher them in through the bioslice gate. “Have your right arms ready to receive your wrist-plate and ID Philm. Surrender your printed matter at checkpoint one!”

  The same instructions repeat over and over as the people—the ones who chose Fell over the Sovereigns—surrender themselves. Suddenly a pair of eyes catches my attention. Though they are younger, clearer, I still recognize them. These are the eyes of my grandfather. He spots a hand waving to him halfway up the line.

  “Will! Up here!”

  “I’m right behind you!” he calls. “I’m here, Edith. Don’t be afraid.”

  Edith. My grandmother. She makes her way back, back, back, through the throng of people to be with him. They clutch hands, holding each other tightly as they inch toward checkpoint one. My grandfather holds a small parcel in his hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Edith tries to smile. “I lost my shoe. They took it. I cannot find my shoe.” She lifts her foot to show him.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, stroking her hair gently. “We will get new shoes in the Vale.”

  Edith shakes her head vigorously. “I don’t want new shoes, Will. I just want these shoes. The ones I came here with.”

  “Remember what they told us, Edith? About the machines and the light?”

  Edith nods a little and blinks back tears.

  “You won’t remember about your shoes once we are inside. We won’t remember all those things.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks, sounding frightened. “Is that what they said?”

  “You’ll see,” he says, kissing her forehead. “It’s all going to turn out just fine in Fell.”

  “That’s good, because I don’t want to remember this, Will. I don’t want to remember much before, either. Not the war, or the fires. Especially not the fires. I just want to remember you, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, you will. And we won’t remember the fires. They’re going to take that all away. Remember how good the Vales looked in the simulcast? Remembe
r? Each family gets a home, and we will be safe there. We can sleep the night through. And there will be food, electricity, security. That’s what we need, Edith. Some security. They’ll give that to us here in Fell.”

  My grandmother blows her nose a little. “Are you sad about your books?” she says, looking up at him. “Because I am. I’m sad for all we lost in the fire.”

  “Yes, but I have you, don’t I?” They inch forward in silence. “Look. It’s our turn soon.”

  My grandfather and grandmother step up to the checkpoint, where they are patted down, scanned, and patted down again.

  “Remove your shoes!” a guard shouts.

  Someone whispers to my grandfather. “Some people have been trying to hide bits of books in the soles of their shoes.”

  “I heard they shot him,” a woman whispers behind them. “Just give them your shoes, for goodness’ sake. It isn’t worth it.”

  They make my grandmother take off her other shoe and my grandfather surrender his boots. Soon, they take my grandfather’s parcel and open it on a long table. There are hundreds of others next to him in the line, all depositing their books.

  “Name, please?” the guard demands.

  “William L. Hartley.”

  The guard looks up at him, then disappears inside the white tent. When he returns, he’s accompanied by another, more senior-looking officer. “You are William Hartley?” the officer asks without looking up from his device.

  “That’s me. Is there a problem?”

  “You’ve been selected. For a trial.”

  “What trial?”

  “For our newest technology, a system called immersion. We would like to test the system on a select few inhabitants. Your compliance is greatly appreciated,” the officer says, unconvincingly, because it is clear my grandfather doesn’t have a choice.

  “What about my wife?”

  “She will receive the standard treatment. Nothing to worry about.”

  Grandfather eyes her, then turns back to him. “You have my compliance, officer.”

  “Very good. And one other thing. Are these all the books in your possession?”

  “Yes, yes, they are. Why, is something the matter?”

  “You know, Mr. Hartley, it is an offense to harbor printed matter in Fell. Books, newspapers, magazines, journals. Whether electronic or digital, we must confiscate them as they are incompatible with the Verity stream, you see. It’s all part of our order here. You understand.”

  “I know the rules. I’m surrendering my books. I don’t have a digital device for reading. Never have.”

  “Right, Mr. Hartley. It’s just that there are an unusually small number of books here for a professional man such as yourself. You were a teacher, were you not?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then where are your books? Did you not use books to teach?”

  “You burned them already,” my grandfather mutters. “Along with my school.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Or don’t you remember what you destroyed in the fires you started?”

  “Perhaps you need evidence?” Edith offers. “We can get you evidence that our printed matter was disposed of, if you wish?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” the officer says. “We have all the evidence we need.” He eyes my grandfather. “There’s only one teacher here in the Vales, Mr. Hartley. So you’d better get used to that.”

  He pauses and pulls on a pair of gloves, inspecting my grandfather’s books as if they’re garbage. “And of course all of your . . . belongings must be incinerated.” He flips through the pages. “I never did understand the preoccupation with printed matter. Books. Old worthless things. Full of lies and deceit, of course. They do nothing but hold us back.”

  “I understand and accept your rules.”

  “Good.” The officer smiles flatly. “Then there shouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “So we may enter, then?” Edith asks.

  The officer looks her up and down, examining her as though she were a buzzing fly. “Yes, you may enter. But your husband must come with us.”

  “Right now?”

  “Admit him!” the officer shouts, ignoring her question. “Admit Mr. William Hartley to our trial.”

  Edith screams and clings to my grandfather as the guards pull him from her. “Don’t worry, Edie! I will be fine. We’ll both be fine. I’ll come and find you!”

  Edith turns. Behind her, a book is being torn apart, its pages ripped from the spine and thrown into an incinerator. Black smoke emerges from it like entrails. “William! I love you!”

  “I love you, Edith! Please, do what the officers say, okay?”

  “Yes, William, I will!”

  “I will see you soon when this is all over!”

  My grandfather is taken into a stark white tent, where he’s hustled into a chair and strapped down by a man in a white uniform.

  “Please make him comfortable,” says the senior officer looking on. “Mr. Hartley has been kind enough to join our little trial. I’d like him to experience it to the fullest extent.”

  The senior officer takes a stool and scoots up to my grandfather. “Now, Mr. Hartley, you are about to undergo what is a revolutionary new procedure here in Fell. One we hope to extend to all the Vales in due course.”

  “What will happen to me?”

  “Nothing will happen to you. When we are finished, you will feel just the same as you do right now. In fact, if the trial is successful, you won’t even remember this little conversation we are having.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Immersion is simply a more effective form of the treatment we give all Valers,” the officer says. “We just want to see how . . . receptive certain people from the populace are to the procedure.”

  “Will it hurt? I can tolerate the pain, but I would prefer to know now if it’s going to hurt.”

  “Oh, Mr. Hartley.” The man in white finishes strapping my grandfather down and places a mask over his nose and mouth. My grandfather struggles in the chair, his eyes wide with alarm.

  “The pain will be the very least of your concerns. You see, we are going to enter your brain and access your memory. Your reading memory, to be precise. That’s in the little piece of flesh called the angular gyrus. We are going to fiddle with it a bit, until you forget all the nonsense of reading. Every word you know will be wiped clean, and you’ll never have to worry about making sense of another written phrase ever again. You’ll be blind, Mr. Hartley. Blind to the words. After that, we’ll skip across the hippocampus and the frontal cortex, replacing memories we feel are harmful to Fell with what we call nano-neural neutralities, or NNN—N to the power of three, if you like. That is, little bits of data we’ve constructed just for you to replace the memories we decide to keep. Of course, we will give you good things, too, like skills that will be useful for your life here in Fell.”

  My grandfather struggles in the chair. The guard steadies him with a hand on his arm. I watch his fingers tighten around him.

  “Now, before we begin, there are a few standard questions I need to ask you. Firstly, do you have any siblings, either living or deceased?” My grandfather shakes his head. His eyes reveal something fearful.

  “Are you sure, Mr. Hartley? No siblings at all?”

  “I’m sure!” my grandfather cries under the mask.

  The officer smiles coolly. “Very good. Now I’d like to show you some pictures. Insert the scanner.”

  The man in white brings a syringe up to my grandfather’s skull. It plunges in suddenly, spilling a single drop of blood. My grandfather writhes up out of his chair in agony.

  “You see, it is no good warning you of the pain, Mr. Hartley, since it is unimaginable. Now, tell me, do you know any of these faces? Any at all?”

  The color drains from my grandfather’s cheeks. His eyes grow cold, distant as the faces of each of the Risers flash before him. I recognize all of them as they flick in quick succession mid
air. Holofernes, Hamlet, Ganymede, Lady M and Macbeth, Goodfellow, Titus, Cordelia, Capulet, Prospero. They’re all there. I see in Grandpa’s expression that denying them is impossible. Because the pictures are from inside my grandfather’s head. They are his memories.

  The officer clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Well, this is very disappointing, Mr. Hartley. Very disappointing, indeed. The infamous Nine of the Rising? What shall we tell Mr. Cadge about this? No, no, it won’t do to let you keep these. We’ll just have to get rid of them. Let’s make them disappear, Mr. Hartley, what do you say?”

  Grandpa struggles against the restraints as the man in white comes to inject his drip once again, but the officer holds him off.

  “Before we send you into oblivion, Mr. Hartley, are there any languages you would like to know how to speak? German? Spanish? Tagalog? Or something more exotic? Medieval French, perhaps? Granted they will be utterly useless to you on the inside other than for recreational conversation, but still . . . you never know.”

  My grandfather shakes his head furiously. His eyes are wide, his brows arched in pain.

  Make it stop! Please! I do not want to see anymore! But there is no stopping the story. The visions have to play out as they are given to me. Then the thought enters my mind: Ledger chose this vision. To convince me not to surrender to Fell. There is more he wants me to see.

  “No language, Mr. Hartley? Okay, fine. Suit yourself.”

  My grandfather twists and thrashes in the chair until the man tightens the straps and steadies him with a final injection. I watch his body go limp, his eyelids close halfway and blink hazily.

  “Now, for our final request before we reprogram you. Can you tell me, please, are there any memories you would like to keep? And do not say the Rising, because you know we won’t let you keep that.” The officer laughs incredulously. “You’d be surprised how many of you boolos think we will let you keep memories of your little movement. But of course those are the ones we are the most eager to do away with.”

  He brushes the hair off my grandfather’s forehead and rubs a bead of sweat between his gloved fingers. “You’re all the same in the end, Mr. Hartley. You just want to live. And we understand that. But we cannot have your kind here in Fell. No, no. Readers like you cannot be tolerated after all we’ve done here. You’d spoil everything. Relieving you of your natural inclinations is the only way. We simply must make you forget.”