It’s just a story.
“I apologize for having kept you waiting, my boy. There was a slight situation down below that needed dealing with, but it’s all taken care of now.”
When Mr. Watson bursts through the door, Henrick finds himself on his feet, a reflex, but he quickly forces himself to sit again. He’s a Governor, and he needs to learn to act like one. Even so, he can’t shake the sense that Mr. Watson is still superior to him, still a figure of authority and even admiration, certainly not someone to chat and joke around with. Governors are Governors and Optics are Optics, and one can’t be treated like the other. There are lines now that can’t be crossed, except for one special person, one special friend.
The man’s cheeks bulge as he grins. “You’re wide awake now, aren’t you? That makes one of us.” He crosses over to a steaming jug sitting on a wide, ornate cabinet that decorates the side of the room, pours a handled glass full of the ugly brown liquid, and raises it toward Henrick. “Coffee?”
Henrick shakes his head, recalling the bitterness of the drink, the way he nearly spit it out but swallowed it anyway to be polite and paid the price with a foul taste in the back of his throat for the next four hours. Of everything new he has tasted in the Governors’ City, coffee is the one thing he will forever avoid.
“Suit yourself,” says the man, and forces his large rear into an elegant but skeletal chair that sags under his weight. For a moment, Henrick catches himself wondering how the man’s skeleton must be faring, if the chair is suffering so, but he forces the thought out of mind before it produces a smile. That’s Io’s influence getting him.
“I trust you’ve been adjusting well to your new arrangements?” Mr. Watson asks, an eyebrow raised. “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to find a more permanent apartment for you yet.”
Henrick sits forward earnestly on the edge of his seat, eager to prove his gratitude. “It’s no problem, Mr. Watson, really. I’m quite content where I am.”
“Well I’m very glad to hear it. But you don’t need to address me as Mr. Watson anymore. We’re equals, Henrick. Call me Ned.”
Henrick nods, but in his mind he knows he never will. Mr. Watson is Mr. Watson. Ned just doesn’t feel right.
“Now I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve dragged you out of bed at this ghastly hour, though you’ll quickly learn that Governors are not so constrained as our citizens by the passage of time. In fact, I find I’m often awake at this time, though this,” he nods at the coffee, “this may cause some problems.” He looks to the glass in his hand for a moment more and begins to lower it to the desk, then seems to reconsider and takes a swig anyway. “But life’s too short to worry about insomnia.”
Mr. Watson eyes Henrick seriously across the desk, a perfect match to the extravagant cabinet beside it. “I called you here because I want to talk to you about a situation in which you were involved of which the Law Enforcement Office just recently informed me. I don’t want you to worry – you’re not in trouble – but I just want to be certain that we’re on the same page.”
Henrick wills the blood not to leave his face, wills his hands not to begin shifting about uneasily as his stomach drops to the atrium below. This is about today. This is about Io.
“Of – of course, sir,” he manages to stammer before he shuts his mouth, not trusting himself to say anything more.
“Now I said there’s no need to worry and I meant it.” With some effort, Mr. Watson stands and drags his chair around to the front side of the desk, setting it beside Henrick and working himself into place inside of it once again. “We just need to talk about what happened earlier today, your little escapade from the medical building with a certain individual. Io Mira.”
The name alone makes Henrick’s heart skip a beat. If he wasn’t nervous before, he certainly is now. Those green eyes.
“I want you to know, Henrick, that I understand and even admire your loyalty to your friend. Such fealty is not a trait the government would readily dissuade. But there inevitably comes a point at which you must decide to whom you will swear that fealty, and I want to reassure you that it is not a decision you will have to make on your own. I and my colleagues would be pleased to guide you as you assimilate into your new life, and I sincerely hope that you will recognize the value in what we are suggesting.”
Mr. Watson pauses in expectation, but Henrick’s mind is slow to comprehend the words. In fact, he’s not sure he’s ever felt so baffled in his life. Half of him knows exactly what to think, and the other half doesn’t care to figure it out. “What you’re suggesting…?” he repeats emptily, thoughtlessly.
Mr. Watson nods heavily. “Yes…I’m sorry to be so vague. I understand how difficult this is going to be for you. You must realize, my boy, that people like Io Mira, people who refuse to comply with even the most just of government standards, are a threat to all of us. If you continue to spend time with those…sorts, I fear you will find yourself drawn away from what is true and good to what is dangerous and unacceptable.”
“But…” Henrick knows he shouldn’t defend her – as much as his past twenty years have taught him otherwise – knows that she would forgive him in an instant for conceding to the government’s will just to get through the moment. But he also knows he won’t be able to live with himself if he doesn’t try. “But the things Io does – they’re just games. She just taunts the government to prove a point. She doesn’t mean anything by it. She isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“But Henrick,” the man stresses, leaning forward as far as his belly will allow, “how can you be certain of that? The girl you knew as a child is grown up now. You must understand that she is a danger to you. She is involved in more hazardous affairs than even you could know of, even just this evening. Io Mira is a traitor.”
He knows about the Neither, Henrick thinks, but Mr. Watson isn’t finished yet.
“And not just a blind follower in a group. No, Io Mira is one of the leaders. To associate with her is to associate with the most zealous of conspirators.”
Mr. Watson, he wants to say, I don’t think we’re talking about the same person. But something in the man’s words speaks of truth, something about the quality of his voice makes Henrick begin to fear that he was wrong to defend her. He still loves her, but sometimes, he knows, even the people you love can do stupid things. She had seemed so distracted that day in the last car of the monorail, and then for ten days she disappeared. It’s hard to find fault in that, as he, too, was largely absent for the majority of those days, but even about the circumstances of the last twenty-four hours there is something unreservedly strange. Her fear of Mack, her desperation to escape, the four guards standing vigilantly outside Ruth and James’ door. Could she really be hiding something?
“Do you understand? You need to stay away from Io Mira, son.”
And Henrick nods, making little effort to hide the grief he’s sure is shining on his face. It’s raw, real and permissible. Of that he is sure, because for once, he’s in agreement with the government, and when the consequence of that is disloyalty to a friend, they wouldn’t expect him to feel anything but grief because of it. He has just accepted that his best friend betrayed his trust, and even so feels nothing but a swell of love for her so huge, it squeezes tears into his eyes and fills his throat so that he can’t even speak, fills his mind and crowds out his thoughts. But Mr. Watson has what he wants.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Henrick. I can’t even begin to tell you how much your allegiance means to the government. You are more than worthy of the title you bear.”
There comes a noise in the hallway, and Henrick turns around to look, though somehow he’s already certain of who it is. They stare at him, not just hurt, but betrayed. Those green eyes.
A Darker World
Thank you for your cooperation, Henrick. I can’t even begin to tell you how much your allegiance means to the government. You are more than worthy of the title you bear.
I can’t get the w
ords out of my head, standing in the doorway, making eye contact with the boy I once shared everything with: from toys and snacks to the darkest of secrets. I didn’t hear anything of the conversation before now, but I don’t need to. I understand exactly what just happened. The unthinkable possibility.
And all of a sudden, the world feels a little darker, as though those very corners of my life that once made it bright have abruptly had the light sucked out of them, leaving only empty shells where security and comfort and love once thrived. Amber eyes glitter with tears, framed by pain and regret, but it’s too late now. It’s done, and there’s nothing I can do to change that, nothing I can do that will bring back the past that just dissolved into a million pieces. My childhood is over, and so is my oldest friendship.
When Mr. Watson finally notices me, he knits his brow, not alarmed, but perturbed. The arrival of a shadow behind me answers his unspoken questions.
I turn to face Mack one last time, putting up no show of boldness or bravado. I want him to see the terror in my eyes, the anguish behind them. I want to show him my pain because if I can’t make him feel it, I want him to know it. I want him to understand what he’s done to me. But he offers no such condolence. Only that same knowing smirk and a gratingly gentle reminder.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave, Io?”
And I do. I leave as fast as I can, the world flashing by through tears that I’m sure have flowed right from Henrick’s eyes into mine. Everything is a blur, and yet so clear that it hurts. They wanted me to see that. They wanted me to know, and if they played me that easily I have no doubt that they’ll play me again. Ruth, James, and Daniel aren’t safe.
The guards are waiting for me when I reach the edge of the Governors’ City, as I knew they would be, but now I’m happy for it. Beautiful, brilliant adrenaline comes and wipes my pain away. I have only one focus, one goal, and I’m determined to achieve it. Get to 1st South 315.
The wall of black uniforms turns in step with a drumming of their boots to face me, an impressive array of unity and strength that would shake me to the core if I allowed myself to care, but there’s no time for that right now. There’s only time for an escape, only room for a map in my head, only energy for the right path. I’m going to return to the tunnel under the monorail, and as I work my way through the rushed calculations and rotations in my mind, I realize that I know a way there from within the Governors’ City. Maybe this isn’t so impossible after all.
Without impediment, I navigate through a few twisting passages and narrow gaps until I arrive at the end of the tunnel opposite the stairwell down whose banisters Henrick and I so ecstatically slid just a few hours ago. A few hours during which I rested in the belief that our friendship hadn’t change at all, even as Henrick grew into his new role.
A violent shake of my head clears the thoughts away. Not now.
The tunnel underneath the monorail is almost entirely dark without the light leaking in from above, but the gentle glow pouring out from the gap behind me, paired with a strange luminescence of the tunnel itself that I can’t quite explain, is just enough to catch the reflection of an untarnished patch of the rusty ladder and guide me to its base. When I reach the top, calmed by the familiarity of exploration like a child by her mother’s voice, I don’t pause before I pull myself through. The lights are out, the guards sequestered far away, and the monorails asleep like the rest of the city at this hour. The hard part is over.
But I haven’t gone more than a few meters when I have to swallow a scream. A face flares into existence in the darkness ahead, illuminated from below by an eerie, unnatural light, followed by another and another until a circle of twenty surrounds me, some on the platform and even more in the tracks with me. I stagger backwards, on the edge of panic, and slam into something solid. The edge of the platform, I think, relieved to have my back against something concrete, until a pair of arms come around from either side and lock me in place. It’s not the platform at all. It’s another guard.
He carries me, flailing limbs and all, through the darkness, guided by his colleague’s handheld lights. They’re taking me back to Mack, I tell myself, or maybe, even better, to the Optic dormitory. I lie to myself so I can catch my breath, fighting against the guard’s grip with every bit of energy I can find in my arms and legs; lie to myself because I want to forget that they’re not carrying me to the quadrant’s entrance, but to its end; lie to myself because the alternative is to give up, to let them do to me what they will and wait in silence for it to be over.
Eventually, I do stop struggling, but only to save my energy for whatever awaits me when we arrive at the end. I go limp, choking back tears, and when we reach the point where the tracks meet the wall, they turn off their lights and throw me to the ground so hard I lose sense of which way is up. One of the overhead lamps flickers to life, but it’s old and broken, unable to sustain the current for long, and with each flare of illumination, the faces are one step closer, turned hideous by their fervent grins.
“Oh, Io. Little Io,” a voice begins mockingly, and I can’t even tell where it’s coming from. “By the time we’re done with you, you’ll learn not to humiliate us again.”
The light flickers off again, and this time it doesn’t come back on.
Ruth and James
The darkness is their greatest strength. There will be no witnesses, not even their own eyes, to what they’re about to do. If no one can see it, no one can intervene. If there are no graphic images of a dying twenty-year-old girl to haunt them, they can’t be plagued with regret.
A few hands much stronger than me hold me back against the wall as I sense a shadow come before me, eager to throw the first punch. I try not to panic at my own utter helplessness, try to be grateful that at least no one I love has to go through this with me. I try to imagine them floating safe up above, whispering to me, holding me, telling me that it will be okay, that it won’t be long until it’s over, that once they’ve killed me they won’t be able to hurt me anymore. But in the darkness, I’m so very alone. Nobody I love is here to help me, nobody is here to sing me to sleep. In the middle of a crowd, I’m completely alone.
I wait and wait for that first blow to come, nearly beg them to get it over with just to break the anticipation. But in the space of a breath they’re scattered, even releasing their grip on me in favor of an escape. I can’t figure out what would drive them from their prize, only fall to my knees and pray that they’ve given up, when a massive beam of light traces a path along the wall ahead, shining through vision blurred by tears.
The monorail. It won’t come this far and hit me - it’ll stop well before then – but once it does the whole place will be bathed in light. I won’t be able to get away.
So against everything I know, I run towards it, crouching into the shadows, holding back the sobs that will give me away if I let them loose, though I’ve never wanted to cry more in my entire life. The guards don’t seem to realize I’ve gone until I appear as a shadow on the platform, ten meters in front of them and farther all the while. But even though speed is easily lost to bulk, I’m so much smaller than them that my agility is negated by the length of my legs. They’re catching up fast, and I have so far to go.
The monorail blows past, isolating the guards on the far side of the tracks, but it’s little consolation. It will only take one to catch me. A hand brushes against my shoulder, another against my elbow as I push against even the air itself in my fight to break free. A third hand finds my wrist and grips hard, slipping down to the side of my hand as I twist it away. My thumb catches in his grasp and makes a strange popping noise as fire threads its way up to my shoulder. At the noise he inadvertently releases me, but not for long.
For a split second, a glowing spot appears on the wall, a stray beam from one of the guards’ lights, and it catches the numbers nailed to a door. 325 appears in my mind. Just five to go. And five go very quickly.
I force my thumb against the scanner, finding it by memory alone witho
ut my eyes to guide me and ignoring the white-hot pain that flashes through my wrist. But something is wrong. The door isn’t responding. I manage to try twice more before the guards take my arms, prepared to drag me back to the end of the tunnel, and I realize that it isn’t a malfunction at all. It’s the power of the Governors. This door will never unlock for me if they don’t want it to.
But then the door swings open of its own accord, blinding us in a different way with the light from within. My eyes finally adjust to find a tiny, frail woman with a massive tuft of gray hair on her head.
“No,” I beg, voice half-lost in a gasp. “No, Ruth, you need to close the door. Don’t let them in. They’ll kill you, Ruth.”
But she stands her ground, unfazed as though I haven’t even spoken. Even unseeing, her gaze seems to sweep across their faces, and they react accordingly. Unspeaking, frozen into the tension of the moment.
“One of you had better have a good explanation for what is going on here,” she warns, her voice deep and menacing as I’ve never heard it before. It strikes fear even in my heart, but the threat is met with silence.
“Then if you’re not men enough to explain yourselves, you leave that girl alone and GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY FRONT DOOR!” she yells, trembling with fury. “Am I understood?”
No one speaks. And suddenly, for the first time in six years, my eyes are not my own. For just a second they search the periphery of my vision, finding the faces of the guards, passive and unresponsive, their unrelenting grip on my arms, her own figure in the doorway. And then she watches herself as she bellows, “AM I UNDERSTOOD?” and smiles with satisfaction when the guards, shaken by her resolve, release me.
Be Thou My Vision (The Population Series) Page 14
