by Anna Sheehan
“You painted all these?”
“It’s just a hobby.”
Bren glanced at me. “They’re good,” he said. “Don’t put yourself down.” He tilted his head as he stared at my painting. “Noid, that’s so sky,” he said, bemused. “There’s something very . . . visceral about these landscapes.”
I looked at him. “Did you really just use the word visceral?” I asked. I hadn’t heard such a word since I’d left stass.
Bren shrugged. “My grandparents always dragged us all to these galleries. I’ve learned how to describe art.”
“Landscapes have always been my strength,” I told him. “I won an award for one once.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, looking more closely at the canvas. After another moment he nodded. “I can see that.” He turned to look at some of my other pieces. “That would be, what, sixty years ago?”
“ Sixty-two,” I said. “It was just before I was stassed.”
“What was it called?”
“Undersky.”
“No, sped, the award,” he said, chuckling.
“Oh. The Young Masters Award. I was supposed to win a month- long art tour through Europe.” And a scholarship, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to accept it.
“You didn’t go?” Bren asked.
“Well, I was . . . indisposed when the trip came up,” I said.
I had been stassed right before the tour. Not that I would have gone, anyway.
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I know it’s weird.”
He shrugged. “Only a little.” He flipped through some finished drawings on the counter. “Is this my mom?” He pulled out a sketch done in pencil on copy paper.
“Yeah,” I said, looking over his shoulder. “I did it in the hospital.” Mrs. Sabah had been an easy study. Her features had clean lines and a natural flow. I just hadn’t been able to bring out the startling green of her eyes.
“Could I make a copy of this? She’d love to see it.”
“Give it to her,” I said.
“Are you serious?”
I shrugged. “It’s just a sketch.”
He looked at me, almost excited. “Would you sign it?”
I frowned but dug a pencil out of a drawer. “Why?”
Bren laughed. “Because with this skill, you’ll be a famous artist any minute, and it’ll probably be worth Mom’s weight in gold.”
I wrinkled my nose. “No, I won’t,” I said. “Mr. Guillory needs me at UniCorp.”
Bren scowled. “Everyone says that.” He turned back to my sheaf of sketches. “It drives me nuts. You should do what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I said. But I signed Rose Fitzroy below Bren’s mother’s portrait and titled the portrait Annie.
“You got everyone in here. Noid, look at that!” He pulled out the sketch of Mr.
Guillory. “You drew him like a troll in this picture!”
I tilted my head sheepishly. “Who, me?” I said innocently.
Bren laughed. He pulled up another sketch. “Who’s this? I think I recognize him. Kid at school?”
I frowned. “No,” I said. I turned away.
Only then did Bren notice the five other drawings of Xavier already on the walls. There were lots more, of course, but I doubted he’d connect the baby pictures with the portraits of Xavier as a young man. His tone turned more serious, and he asked, “Who is he?”
I didn’t want to tell Bren this. And yet I did. I wanted Bren to catch me up and tell me that he was sorry for me, tenderly kiss my forehead, my eyelids, assure me he would make it all okay. I turned to my drafting table and watched the fish behind it. “Just my old boyfriend.”
“Oh,” he said. Then, only half of what I wanted, he added, “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged.
There was an awkward silence. I could feel the heat of him behind me, drawing me toward him. “Well, ahm . . . thanks for the sketch. Mom’s gonna love it.”
“Anytime,” I said.
“Guess I’ll see you at school.”
By the time I turned away from the fish, Bren had already skittered out the door.
– chapter 8—
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I huddled in my bedroom, my hand firmly on Zavier’s collar, my cell within easy reach. At every little click of sound, every time Zavier shifted his weight, at every light flickering over the walls from a passing skimmer, I was convinced I was about to be attacked again. At dinner I’d considered telling Patty and Barry about my attacker, but I really couldn’t bring myself to. They had such indifference toward me, and it seemed so impossible. I wasn’t an idiot; I’d checked the security logs —there had been no break- in. As far as of ficial records went, it had never happened. It didn’t make any sense.
As daylight began to glow through my window, I picked up my cell. “Dr. Bija’s of fice,” said the holoimage of her secretary.
“I’d like to make an appointment,” I said. “For this morning, if that’s possible.”
The secretary was brusque and dismissive. “This is urgent?”
I considered this question. My usual impulse when someone asked such a thing was to say no. “Yes,” I said, feeling ashamed.
“Do you attend the school?”
I nodded.
“Name?”
“Rose Fitzroy.”
“Oh!” The secretary’s demeanor suddenly changed, and her eyes began to dart away from mine, looking toward her screen. “Well, I can’t get you in before school starts, but I can arrange for an appointment at ten, at the start of third period. Dr. Bija can file an excuse for you over the net.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
“Of course, Miss Fitzroy.” She disappeared, looking relieved to be off the phone with me.
I slept through social psych. I stayed awake in history to watch Bren, but by third period I was glad of the excuse to miss Chinese.
Dr. Bija seemed concerned when I showed up in her of fice. “Is there a problem, Rose?” she asked. “My secretary told me you’d scheduled an extra session.”
“I know I’m not supposed to meet with you until Monday, but I can’t sleep.”
“Have the nightmares gotten worse?”
“Not exactly,” I said, but I’d been wondering that since I’d gotten home the day before. There was really no evidence of the shiny man’s existence other than Zavier’s exhaustion, which might have come about from him going wild in my studio while I slept. “Sort of. Maybe.” I sat down on the couch, feeling confused and exhausted.
“What seems to be the trouble?” Mina asked.
“I . . . I thought I was attacked the night before last,” I said. “By this shiny, dead- eyed man who wanted to put a control collar on me . . .” I told her the whole thing, including how I’d run down to the subbasement and fallen asleep in my stass tube. “And when I came upstairs, my studio was trashed,” I finished.
“Did you tell Patty and Barry about this . . . experience?” Mina asked.
“No,” I said. “Patty was so angry when she got up and the room was a mess, and then I had to go to school. And by the time they got home last night, it seemed too weird.”
Dr. Bija nodded. “You realize that your building is a high- security zone, don’t you? No unauthorized persons can even set foot in the grounds, let alone walk through the corridors and into your condo, without a hundred alarms going off.”
“I know,” I said. “I checked the security logs. He wasn’t there. And most of my dreams involve being hunted by something, but this one felt so much more real. And my studio was trashed.”
“Could your dog have done it?” Mina asked.
“Maybe. But how could I have a dream that my studio was trashed, then wake up and have it true?”
“That happens very often,” Mina told me. “We hear things while we’re unconscious and incorporate them into our drea
ms. I’m more worried about the possibility of you sleepwalking. Have you had any experience with that before?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t really have nightmares before now. But last night I was so scared, I just sat up all night.”
Dr. Bija nodded. “I’m going to arrange for you to get a prescription sleep aid.
Something mild,” she reassured me, “non- habit- forming. Take it only if you have real trouble getting to sleep, like last night. Do you know the name of your doctor? I’ll have to have him prescribe it.”
“No,” I said.
“I’ll contact Mr. Guillory. He should be able to tell me the name.”
“Do you have to go through Guillory?” He still made me uncomfortable.
“I won’t tell him anything about this,” Mina said. “But I can’t prescribe the medication myself.”
I sighed. “Okay. Rose the freak gets freakier.”
Mina laughed. “Do you really think you’re a freak?”
“What else do you call a teenager who’s a hundred years old?”
“I think it’s only seventy- eight,” Mina said, and I knew I’d said a bit much. I’d realized a few days ago that when Bren woke me up it had been a century since the day of my birth. A century and going on seven weeks. There were some things it was better that Dr. Bija didn’t know.
I didn’t have any more dreams of the shiny man, nor did I sleepwalk, as far as I knew. The pills Dr. Bija had sent over did help with my nightmares a bit. Or rather they helped me get back to sleep once I had them.
I continued going to school, which remained steadily dreadful. I continued my physical therapy, which was finally starting to take. It got to the point where I could actually take Zavier for a nice long walk after school without my muscles shutting down, though I still couldn’t run. I continued my art, which was surprisingly more polished than ever before —sixty- two years of stass dreaming hadn’t gone entirely to waste. I continued to see Dr. Bija once a week.
And I continued, almost against my will, to watch Bren.
“Did you bring in any of your artwork for me today?” Dr. Bjia asked as I walked into her office.
I shook my head. It had been almost four weeks since my sleepwalking incident, and for all of our sessions, I’d never remembered to grab one of my landscapes before I left home. “Sorry.”
Mina raised an eyebrow. “I see you’ve brought a sketch-book. Is there anything there you’d be willing to let me see?”
“But these are just sketches,” I said, surprised.
“So? I don’t need to see the Mona Lisa.”
I shrugged. “Okay.” I passed her the sketchbook.
The first few pages were landscapes. “Tell me about these,” Mina said.
“Just landscapes,” I said.
“Where did you draw them?”
“Ahm . . . during class, mostly,” I admitted. Over the last month I’d filled considerably more pages in my sketchbook than I had done schoolwork on my notescreen. Very few of my sketches were in color, but she seemed to appreciate even the charcoal- gray landscapes. Lots of them featured lightning storms — my stass dreams often did. She turned a few more pages. “And who’s this? Bren?”
I licked my lips nervously. “No,” I said. “That’s Xavier.” I’d forgotten I had sketches of him in there. I had been trying so hard to avoid mentioning anything about my old life, and here I’d just handed her a lead to it.
“Who’s Xavier?”
“Someone I used to know . . . before.”
I could suddenly feel her burning with questions, all of the questions that she had avoided asking about my old life. I did not volunteer any more information, and to her credit, she respected that. She simply turned another page.
“That’s Nabiki and Otto,” I said.
“Yes, I know.”
“You know Otto?”
“Otto’s a little like you. I think everyone knows him,” Mina said.
I caught something in the words that I probably shouldn’t have. “Is he a client of yours?”
“I can’t answer that,” Mina said. “You should ask him if you’re curious.”
I sighed. “I can’t. He won’t talk to me.”
“You’d be surprised how much Otto can say, if you’d let him.”
“I know all about that,” I said. “But he won’t touch me. My mind scares him for some reason.”
“Ah,” Mina said thoughtfully. “Did he tell you why?”
I shook my head. “Nabiki couldn’t translate it very well.”
“Have you tried asking him personally?”
“I told you: he won’t talk to me.”
Mina pursed her lips. “Have you tried contacting him over the net?”
I stared at her as if she’d gone insane. “If he can’t talk, he can’t use a cell, either.”
“Through your notescreen,” Mina clarified. “He writes very well.”
I simply hadn’t thought of that. I rarely even opened my notescreen, and it hadn’t occurred to me to use it to con-tact anyone. I’d never had anyone to contact before. “I’ll think about it,” I said, turning another page of my sketchbook. “That’s Bren.”
Mina smiled. “He’s a handsome one. Look at those eyes!”
I stared at them. “I know,” I said quietly. I’d highlighted his eyes in the sketch.
They seemed to shine out from shadow space. Bren’s eyes always drew me, until I found myself drawing them.
I’d drawn the entire lunch table crew on different pages of the book, so Mina was able to put faces to all the names I’d mentioned. Then she turned the page and landed on another portrait of Xavier. “Now, this is the same boy as before,”
Mina said, “but he looks younger. Is it his brother?”
“No,” I said. “That’s Xavier, too. I knew him for a long time.”
“How long?”
Pain stabbed me. “All his life,” I said.
Then she asked me the first solid question she’d really asked about my situation. “You miss him?”
I considered brushing it off or changing the subject, but I didn’t. “Every day,” I said. “I try not to think about him.”
“Yet you draw him.”
I sighed. “I can’t think about him, but I can’t forget him, either. It’s not right to forget someone you love.”
There was a long, long silence.”You think?” Mina finally asked.
This line of questioning had gone seriously awry. “Any-way, that’s my sketchbook,” I said, taking it back. “Just a bunch of doodles.”
“They’re very skilled,” Mina said, returning to her chair. “Do you think you’ll continue with your art?”
“Of course I will.”
“I mean, do you think you’d like to do that for a living?”
“I have UniCorp to tend to,” I reminded her.
“Ah, right,” Mina said. “That is a tricky one. Do you think you have the skills to run a multitiered interplanetary corporation like UniCorp?”
No one had ever put it quite like that before. My shoulders sagged. “No,” I admitted. “But maybe I could hire someone to run it. Maybe after college . . .”
She laughed. “Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about that right now.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “I should study harder.”
...
I should study harder. That became both my litany and my shame, because as much as I said it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew I was too stupid to understand, so how could my school subjects interest me?
But Bren interested me. And Otto interested me even more.
I was very interested in Otto, but I found it difficult to find out more about him.
I felt awkward offering him my net-number, particularly with Nabiki around (and she was always around). Nabiki liked to talk about him, though, and I managed to find out some. He was always there when I gleaned my little knowle
dge, and it felt very odd not to be getting the information directly from him — though at least we weren’t talking about him behind his back.
From what I could find out, Otto had won the Uni Prep scholarship without telling anyone exactly who he was. The scholarship had been awarded on the basis of an essay. Otto couldn’t speak, but he had a brilliant mind, and that came out in his writing.
Despite the scholarship, Otto almost didn’t get into Uni Prep. It took him six months and a civil rights lawsuit before he earned the right to an outside education. Before he’d come to the school, he and his family had been educated in a UniCorp laboratory, every nuance of their brain activity monitored and recorded.
Otto worked very hard at Uni Prep. His siblings —the other three Europa Project children who weren’t simple —were still being monitored by UniCorp, and he visited them on weekends. Though they weren’t being mistreated, all of them looked forward to the moment when they would come of age and be officially under their own guardianship.
Bren was a thing of pure energy in my head, a fluttering bird of feeling that consistently distracted my thoughts. Conversely, Otto was a weight. He lurked, a heavy burden standing in the corner of my mind, until I was dragging it everywhere. It ate at me that all of his hardships stemmed from the company I was supposed to own.
It didn’t help that I often caught him watching me —staring at me, really —but his face was virtually expressionless. I couldn’t read him. Other than the forced smile he’d obviously cultivated as a social lubricant, there was no way to tell what he was thinking. He was either interested in me or violently angry with me; I really couldn’t tell.
My opportunity came through pure accident. At lunch a few days after I showed my sketchbook to Dr. Bija, Nabiki and Otto left the table very quickly and both forgot their screens. I surreptitiously reached across the table and turned Otto’s on. There it was. I threw his number onto my own screen, so that I could contact him later.
And just in time. Nabiki came running back, and I picked up both screens to cover my prying. “You forgot these,” I told her, holding them out to her.
Nabiki looked a little annoyed. “Thanks,” she said.
She was always polite, Nabiki, but I could tell she didn’t really like me.
