by Various
A. 1. The mental energy of the Minded. (Fear, faith, desire, and other strong emotions, as well as deliberate spellcasting.)
2. The pseudo-mental energy of Non-Minds. (Different from Minded. Poorly understood.)
3. Ordinary physical processes working with Non-Mundane sources. (E.g. Infection with Non-Mundane viruses; operation of Non-Mundane mechanics and circuitry; Non-Minds reproducing sexually.)
4. Divine intervention (rare)
In special cases the Minded have some control over 3, but in a normal situation, 1 is the only way we can hope to have a say. This is why any Minded venturing out of their Certified Home must learn to control their mental energy above all else.
Practical Component, Part 2
Your mother’s corpse follows you into City Hall. You haven’t been able to make her speak. After the third inarticulate groan you started to ignore her. You can’t get too fascinated with the Non-Minded, even if they look like your mother. Maybe especially if they look like your mother.
City Hall is a big limestone building, domed and pillared. When you were too little to leave your Certified Home, your mother showed you a picture and told you they used to administrate all of Upper and Lower Canada from here. You misunderstood at first. She had to explain that this was long before she came to Canada, long before her own parents were born. By 12/12 the place was mostly a tourist attraction.
She had to explain five times what a tourist attraction was.
“And,” she whispered sometimes, “not everything was Mundane, even then. There was always a little magic. But it was different. Hidden.”
The next page of your exam lies neatly on the front steps. When you’ve answered the question, your next destination blooms on the paper. The altar at St. Mary’s.
You goggle at the page. The church district is the second-worst part of the city. Worst are the prisons, of course, but no sane professor would send you there in your first year. A sane professor wouldn’t send you to the churches either. In a place like that, belief metastasizes.
But that’s what the page says. That’s what you have to do.
You rise to your feet and march down the steps. Worrying will only waste time. You breathe deeply. You stay in your centre. I refuse to be afraid.
Your mother’s corpse trails after you. Groans again.
“Go away, Mom,” you say through your teeth. She shambles along in your wake, undeterred.
Almost everything is dangerous when provoked, even your mother. You think of the question on Romero Disorder. You wonder if she will attack you later, if Professor Yao will grade you on whether you made the transition to combat at the right moment. Am I going to have to kill my mother?
Then you close your mind on the question. Thinking it might make it happen. You do times tables. You recite poetry. You breathe deep.
You detour around the hospital, which is the third-worst part of the city, and venture into the bowels of the church district. Your mother has shown you pictures of how it looked before 12/12—like normal buildings, lined up along the street and neatly separate, their steeples and stained glass the only hint of magic. You’ve never seen a church in real life that still looks that way. They’re overgrown and bulbous, intersecting at odd angles and growing knots around the connections. Between Sydenham Street United and First Baptist there’s a place where needlelike stones wave in a slow-motion battle, the remnants of sectarian disagreements no one remembers anymore.
The street itself grows over with Gothic arches until you can’t see sunlight. You’ve never gone this deep into the church district. You don’t know what church this stretch of the road belongs to this week, but it’s candlelit and lined with icons: St. Francis and the Animals, St. George and the Bulldozer, the Warrior Angel of the Three-Headed Sharks.
Your mother trails behind you, staring into space. You wish she would go away.
There’s a rumbling sound.
You think they’re Minded for a second. Pilgrims. There are religious people crazy enough to try to live in these places. The creatures creeping out of the walls look almost like humans. Broad, clean faces, smiling, in the whole range of human colours, not purple, not gray and rotting like your mother. Covered in robes: white, blue, and burgundy.
But they lurch while they walk. They hum dully together in the ghost of a hymn.
Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. The Non-Minds have a sense of irony.
And they are coming right for you, their fingers outstretched in claw shapes.
You’re outnumbered. You don’t know how powerful they are. You should run or call the emergency robots. But you have to get to the next question. You’re so close. You can see the arched nave of St. Mary’s just past them. And you don’t know any other way in.
You are too tempted.
You know how to jump and how to balance; you did gymnastics for years in your Certified Home. You can stand on the railing and run past them. It’s ambitious, but you can do it. I refuse to be afraid
You hop up onto the railing with ease.
The closest Non-Mind grabs your shin and pulls you back down.
In an instant they’re all over you. Heavy robes and grabbing, tearing fingers. You roll to your feet and punch out at them blindly. In American schools the students have guns for this, but Professor Yao doesn’t allow them. They make you arrogant and a lot of the interesting Non-Minds are immune to bullets anyway. So it’s back to your punches, blocks, kicks and throws.
You get one in the nose, one in the neck, and they stagger backwards. You trip another one behind you. A jab from your elbow and a fourth goes down. But every time you hit one, two more grab you.
There are too many. They’re coming too fast.
You punch out again, but your arm doesn’t even fully extend before a group of three Non-Minds grab it away. You panic. Try to peel them off with your other hand but they trap that one, too.
You fall. The floor hits your shoulder and they’re on you. Their mouths gape open, the ghost of the Stabat Mater still echoing in the air. Blunt teeth close on your shoulder.
Then there is a roar.
Your mother plows into the fray, tossing Non-Minds aside like Styrofoam. Her half-rotted fingernails tear their flesh. A hand lets go of you, then another, and you leap to your feet. Adrenaline surges through you. You punch and kick and shout alongside her, but it’s her they run away from.
And run away they do. Until the arched-over street is empty again and you’re catching your breath in silence.
Your mother has no breath to catch.
You don’t know if you just failed your exam. You don’t know if it’s safe to touch your mother. But oh god. It’s your mother. She’s saved your life.
You wrap her in a bear hug the way you used to when she was alive. She smells horrible, like meat left out on the counter too long, and you don’t care.
Written Component, Part 3
Q. What would you have done in that fight if your mother had not been there?
A. Did I just fail? Did I fail because I got in a fight? It wasn’t Romero Disorder. They actually attacked me. Did I fail because I fought instead of running away? Did I fail because I didn’t beat them on my own?
Q. What would you have done if your mother had not been there?
A. Did I fail?
Q. What would you have done if your mother had not been there?
A. You’re not even going to tell me if I failed, are you?
I might have waded in anyway, but that would have been really stupid. It’s important to know when you’re outnumbered. What I should have done is run away. If there was no suitable escape route, I should have called 911. Emergency robots are not a sure thing, but if they get there in time, you’ll probably survive. That is what I should—would have done. Avoided the confrontation.
No human can win against everything. Knowing when to back off is as important as knowing how to fight. And so is knowing who to turn to for help.
Practical Component, Part 3
&n
bsp; Fort Henry Hill. A cakewalk compared to the churches.
You were scared of the Hill when you first came to Queen’s. The squat fortress on top was paced by uniformed Non-Minds and cannons that rolled along of their own volition. Every so often a thundering boom echoed from the ramparts. You pictured it worse than the churches or even the prisons, a place infected with the brutality of war. Professor Yao had to explain to you that the war was over long before 12/12.
The Non-Minds here are friendly, as Non-Minds go.
You stride up the hill, one hand held in your mother’s, keeping an eye on the cannons. Showing fear is not recommended here. Neither is excessive speed, furtiveness, belligerence, or the carrying of weapons. They’re friendly, but you don’t want to get them excited.
“Left! Right! Left!” barks a small group of Non-Minds marching past you, ramrod-straight in bright red. It’s like the Oil Thigh: the only thing they can say.
The swing bridge holds as you creep across the protective ditch. The Non-Minds have left the front gates open. Easy. The interior is an ancient limestone courtyard, gray and stately.
You try to catch your mother’s eye in triumph. Which is when you notice the flesh sloughing off her face.
She was rotting before. But the blood of the Non-Minds at the church has done something. Acidic, maybe. She’s coming apart where it splashed her. No one’s skin should peel off like that, even if they’re dead already.
You bite down the panic. Panicking will attract all the fear-seeking Non-Minds for miles. But you’re already walking faster, aiming for the Lower Fort. Maybe they’ll have something. A washbasin. Water.
What if they don’t have water? The lake is close by. You can take your mother there. If running water doesn’t drive zombies off. If the sharks and tentacle-things don’t get you.
If water can get the blood off at all.
You duck into one of the fort’s corridors. They’re narrow and short, and torchlight creeps across them. There will be a washbasin in here somewhere. Or at least the next page of your exam. But it may be too late.
Written Component, Part 4
Q. Tell me about your mother.
A. What does this have to do with the course?
Q. Tell me about your mother.
A. She’s dying.
Q. Tell me about your mother.
A. Is this part of the exam? Did you bring her here somehow? A spell?
Q. Tell me about your mother.
A. You have to be sure I can control my energy. So you purposely give me something that will make my HEAD EXPLODE. To see if I can control THAT. Is that how things are?
Q. Tell me about your mother.
A. No.
Q. Tell me about your mother.
A. She came to Queen’s from India two years before 12/12. For graduate school. She was studying chemistry. She was home with morning sickness when it happened. She still wasn’t sure if she was really pregnant or if it was stress and bad food. The other two RAs in her lab got eaten when the hydrochloric acid came to life. My father died a few days later.
She survived. Flying home was out of the question. So was giving up. Even without her parents, without my father, she knew she had to make a life for me.
She learned VAL3 and OpenRDK so she could help program the emergency robots. She designed some of the first Certified Homes and did some of the first mapmaking on the post-12/12 city and its hazards. She took me to see the local shut-ins, and she said, “That’s no life. It’s good we have these homes. You can’t imagine life without them. But when you grow up you have to go further, or what’s the point? You’re my strong, smart, brave little girl. You can go wherever you like, if you are prepared.”
I went to school because of her. She was so proud of me. She made me stay in residence, even though she lived in town, just so I’d know what it was like to live without her. She came by every weekend with curry. Everything she did was for me.
By Thanksgiving, something had started growing in her lungs.
I watched her die. I watched the robots put her body in the ground. And now, you bastard professor, you’re making me do it again.
Practical Component, Part 4
You stop writing. Writing is making you angry. Anger will attract Non-Minds full of rage, and you can’t afford that now. You go into your centre. Breathe deep.
Fort Henry has hot and cold running water, it turns out, but no amount of washing will get the blood out of your mother’s skin. The flesh is coming off her arms altogether now, exposing bone.
You want to ask if it hurts. You’re afraid to ask. She groans, long and loud, again and again, but you don’t know if that’s because it hurts, or because that’s the sound zombies make.
Back to campus, says the latest page of the exam, by way of Aberdeen Street.
You slip out of your centre for a moment. You want to tell Professor Yao you don’t care where she wants you. You don’t care about this stupid exam anymore. But that’s an angry thought. You have to let it go.
Aberdeen Street is the densest haunt of the Purples. It’s literally crawling with them. And that makes sense, if you think about it calmly: Professor Yao wants you to walk through the Non-Minds’ nest, staying in your centre, even though your mother is coming apart. If you can do that and live, you can go anywhere.
“Would you like to stay here?” you ask your mother. “Would that help?” You don’t want to drag her across town in the shape she’s in. Walking might make it worse.
She gives you a piteous look. The skin around her eyes is rotting and sloughing off, but you can still see pain in them. Pain and terror.
You don’t know if that’s a yes or no to your question.
You look away.
“Do whatever hurts less,” you say. “Please. I’ll be all right.” And you start to walk.
Your mother shuffles slowly behind you.
You barely see the roads go by as you walk. Your feet are already aching, but you don’t care. All your energy goes to putting one foot in front of the other. Keeping your breathing going. Keeping your emotions at bay. Not looking over your shoulder.
It’s only when Aberdeen Street looms up in right in front of you that you work out what’s wrong.
The street is there—sort of. The close-set red-brick houses. The thick groups of Purples lounging in nests, tossing garbage around, climbing through the windows or slapping their jackets. But something else is there. It’s not just a nest for Purples today: the bulldozers have moved in, bringing a maze of scaffolding and temporary wire fences with them.
These things roam the outskirts of campus. Digging up roads and putting them back. Smashing old, living buildings and assembling new ones. Something hovers around the university that is insatiable, that cannot stop building, and the bulldozers are its midwives.
You almost fall back and detour. But Professor Yao is too good to send you here by mistake. She has a virtual map keeping track of the bulldozers’ migrations. She wouldn’t have sent you to them unless she wanted you to face them.
Still, you falter. You risk a look over your shoulder.
Your mother has come entirely apart. Barely more than a skeleton now, dusted with clumps of black hair, fragments of the red sari.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
“Go back,” you whisper. “Please.”
She gives you the same pain-and-terror look with those empty sockets. You never studied how zombies are made, what spells are used. Maybe she can’t go back. Maybe the same force that brought her to life keeps her cloven to you.
Your hands are shaking. You breathe as deep as you can. You have to fight your way to the centre now.
You walk forward.
The bulldozers rumble and roll of their own accord, chattering to each other every so often with piercing beeps. You walk into their midst, into the wire-fence maze.
Your presence makes them pause. It turns the Purples’ heads. They stare at you. Murmur to each other. A few shift like they’re thinking of g
etting up.
You fight down panic. You’re not quite in your centre. You’re radiating too much emotion and they’re noticing you too fast.
What did Professor Yao tell you to do in a situation like this? Better meditation? A detour? You can’t remember. You hardly care. It’s hard enough to put one foot in front of the other, let alone think of other options.
You put one foot in front of the other for a while. And then the maze comes to a dead end.
You pause. Try to retrace your steps. But looking carefully, there is no way forward. There’s a wire fence here stretched all the way across the street. No opening. No gate. You’re stuck.
You waver.
And then, before you can stop her, the skeleton of your mother leaps up and begins to climb the fence.
You rush after her. You’re not the best climber. But you’re suddenly frantic to reach her. Little slivers of bone are clattering to the ground now as she hooks her fingers into the links. “No,” you whisper. “No, no, no!” But she climbs faster than you. You’re up at the top of the fence, nearly at her, before you can think straight. She wobbles. You reach out to steady her.
Before your fingertips reach her, she falls forward.
You leap. It’s only eight feet down from the top of the fence to the other side. Not enough to do more than jar you, with your gymnast’s sense for landings. But where your mother hits the ground there’s suddenly nothing but red fabric and broken fragments of bone, rolling outwards in all directions.
You land on your hands and knees. You stare at the red fabric in disbelief. You scrabble at it, like you can put her back together again.
Where is your centre? You can’t find it. You can’t even imagine where it would be. All you can do is crouch on the ground, staring, shivering.
The Purples, in your peripheral vision, are all crawling towards you.
Fine. You have no centre. You can’t even bring yourself to get up. You don’t care. So the Purples will take you. There are too many of them to fight, and not enough time for the emergency robots to get here. There’s nothing you can do. You can refuse to be afraid. You can’t refuse to grieve.
