by Daniel Quinn
“Then I guess I’m mean,” Jasmine said, yanking free and charging for the door.
She sat in the back of the silver Lexus as it backed itself down the driveway and into the street, heart hammering in her chest. She pulled out her phone. Opened her personal data store. Looked for log-in credentials for the online data. She could send them to Norwood’s phone with a few taps on the smartglass. Her finger hovered over the screen. The Lexus accelerated out of their neighborhood, heading for the highway. The phone screen went dark, locking after three minutes of inactivity.
~*~
She returned home late that night, hoping Norwood would already be in bed. She slipped off her heels and crept up the stairwell to the second floor of the townhome. The under-mounted kitchen cabinet lights cast strange shadows over the granite countertops. She filled a glass of water from the pitcher in the refrigerator and drained it. Turned—
The glass fell from her hand, shattering on the floor.
“Jazz, baby? Are you okay?”
Norwood loomed in the pale light.
“Jesus! You scared the shit out of me!”
“I fell asleep on the couch. I was waiting up for you. What time is it?”
“After midnight.”
“Long day?”
“Yeah.”
Norwood flipped on the kitchen lights. “You’re in stockings. I’ll take care of the glass in the morning.” He slipped an arm behind her, lifted her off her feet.
“You can set me down now,” she said when they reached the hallway.
“Nope.” Norwood carried her to the living room and turned on the lights. Strewn around the room sat piles of printer paper.
“What’s all this?”
He set her down and she moved to the nearest pile and read the top sheet. Mount Pleasant Hospital. A medical bill dated from ten years ago.
“I printed everything,” Norwood said. “All our financial records going back to when we got married.”
“Everything?”
“I needed to be sure.”
Jasmine felt as if the floor were tilting beneath her feet, as if she might slide over the walnut hardwood floor and on out the nearest window. “Be sure of what?”
“Sit down, Jazz.”
She fell more than sat, cushioned by the sofa.
“There’s something you need to know,” Norwood said.
“I don’t want to know,” Jasmine said. “Don’t tell me.”
Norwood sat on the coffee table, facing her. The TV blinked to life behind him, displaying a photo of a blackened building, gutted windows, shingles curled into insect husks. Jasmine lay on her side, hands pulled against her chest. She didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to know.
“You died,” Norwood said. “In the fire. It was you who died.”
“No,” Jasmine whispered. “Angelica…”
“There isn’t any Angelica.”
Jasmine screamed into the sofa cushions. Screamed the way she had when the fire burned so hot and fast and high that she couldn’t get out of the bedroom. Norwood sleeping on the couch after one of their stupid fights. The window exploding in. Water showering the carpeting, dark smoke. Smothering all screams.
“No,” she said, throat dry.
“I’m sorry, babe.”
“She’s real.”
“She’s you,” Norwood said. “You needed something to help you cope. We all do. When we come back. You needed to grieve something, and so you made up a daughter.”
“You can’t remember anything!” Jasmine screamed. “You can’t remember anything!”
“I don’t have to remember,” Norwood said, sweeping his hand at the papers strewn around the room. “You hid everything you could, but you forgot the financial records.”
Jasmine closed her eyes, tried to picture Angelica in the yellow onesie, but all she saw was smoldering ash. And water. So much water. The sense of weightlessness, of floating in a perfect bubble of climate-controlled liquid, eyes fluttering as an implant re-integrated memories into her mind, as her body grew and grew, until she arrived in a sealed canister to be embraced by her jubilant, smiling husband.
~*~
A Word from Nathan M. Beauchamp
Nathan M. Beauchamp started writing stories at nine years old and never stopped. From his first grisly tales about carnivorous catfish, mole detectives, and cyborg housecats, his interests have always delved into strange waters. Nathan works in finance so that he can support his habit of putting words together in the hope that someone will read them. His hobbies include reading, photography, arguing for sport, and pondering the eventual heat death of the universe. He has published many short stories in magazines and anthologies, and holds an MFA in creative writing from Western State. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two young boys.
Nathan co-created the award winning YA science fiction series Universe Eventual where he writes as N.J. Tanger. The series includes Chimera, Helios, and Ceres and the prequel Ascension. Universe Eventual is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CEAR90W. Nathan can be reached at: www.njtanger.com.
~*~
Like No Other
Daniel Arthur Smith
~*~
I never knew my mother. I was born two years after she died. There are a few pictures of her—my father hid the rest, and he rarely speaks of her or my twin. My older sister Yoshiko told me father hid them because they remind him of the accident that took my mother and twin away. But at night, when my sister puts me to bed, she tells me stories. Yoshiko was young when the accident happened so they aren’t really adventures or anything, mostly she talks about how kind and soft and gentle my mother was. She runs her thin fingers through my hair and says it’s dark and silky like my mother’s was—except not as long—then she waves her fingers between my eyes until my lids begin to blink and flutter, and says they’re also like mother’s—one blue, one hazel—and then she runs the tip of her middle finger down the bridge of my nose, tells me that’s mother’s too, kisses my forehead and says she loves me like no other.
On Saturdays, my father takes us to Jacque’s, the French bistro on the square. I love the pomme frites there—they serve them crisp with mayonnaise—and my father always has the curry mussels. He says I should pick things off the menu labeled with the green dots because they’re better for my gene type, but I challenge and ask him if that’s the case and he’s my father, why does he always eat the dishes labeled blue. “I’m partial to seafood,” he says.
“All the more reason to eat the green dots,” I say. “They’re almost all kelp.”
One sunny Saturday in September, no different than any before, Yoshiko surprises my father. She runs her fingers down the caloric amounts listed beside each dish and then stops by a green dot and says, “Maybe I should go on a diet.”
My father scowls and says, “For one, you don’t need to diet, and two, there’s nothing wrong with the orange dot dish you always get. You’re young and growing. But eat what you wish.”
“I’m growing too fast,” she tells him. “I’m a head taller than the other girls in my class.”
“That has nothing to do with your diet.”
“I’d just like to wear clothes that were made for girls.”
I don’t say anything. I’ve heard Yoshiko complain about this since she started middle school. I hear everything. She’s tall and lanky and feels awkward. But father’s right, she doesn’t need to go on a diet because she mostly pokes at what’s on her plate as it is.
I call Yoshiko my sister, but she isn’t really. It’s complicated, but before my twin was born, my mother and father thought they couldn’t have children, so father gave mother Yoshiko. I’ve heard the story many times, in a way it’s my story too. Father has explained to her that is why she is taller than the other girls, because of something called gene editing, it’s also why neither of us become ill. But I don’t really understand.
It’s a warm day for September and we’re sitting at an outside table beneath on
e of the many wide Tuscan red umbrellas looking out on the square. The tall kerosene heaters are already out amongst the tables, but none of them are turned on. Father says, “Summer’s back is not yet broken,” it’s something one of his favorite poets said. He must be in a good mood because he’s ordered one of the fancy orange beers they serve in wine glasses here. And, for the most part, everyone around us appears happy—chatting, drinking, eating. The pear trees surrounding the square are still green and full and the raised central fountain has not yet been turned off for the season. A large column of water erupts from its center and a half dozen jets send sparkling arcs across its round pool. Young people—students from father’s university, I think—take up every inch of the fountain steps—sitting around, reading, enjoying the fall sun—while others are gathered across the square listening to a jazz trio play something I don’t know the name of but recognize from father’s digital collection.
The day is perfect—and then, in a moment, it’s not.
It begins with the chanting down Elm Street. We can’t see the marchers from where we sit but we hear them: the tinny sound of a loudspeaker, a bullhorn, and the echoing cadence behind each monosyllabic bark. Father’s mood changes quickly and, though he tries to hide it from us with a thin-lipped smile and a smug sip of his orange beer, I can see the disgust creep across his face.
“Who are they?” I ask as they enter the square, rhythmically bellowing, signs that make no sense held high, ‘Unnatural’, ‘Not God’s Way’.
“Naturalists,” says Yoshiko.
“Purists,” my father says over her, his distaste for them evident in his tone.
“I don’t understand,” I say, and I don’t, because both of those words sound strange to me. We don’t discuss such things in the third grade, but I recognize the symbols on some of the banners. They’re what my teacher calls symbols of hate.
My sister, always kind, says, “The protesters are against gene manipulation—and people like us. They believe the natural processes of the world shouldn’t be interfered with.”
Father added, “The Naturalists pair technology with fire and brimstone.”
“But that’s silly,” I say, and it’s true. If scientists like my father didn’t work so hard to understand the genes in the plants and the animals, the world would be an awful place. And most of the children in my class—most kids I know and I bet all of the students in the square—are ‘like us’. What would their parents have done without the help of people like my father? They never could’ve had children. Even simple things like the color dots on the menu that tell us what foods are best for our gene type would be impossible, even I know that.
“It is silly,” says Yoshiko. “But these people are sheep. Right father?”
“Quite the contrary dear, they are the wolves, gathered in a pack.”
The marchers had already eclipsed the jazz band and it was then that they began to encroach the steps of the fountain. At first the students—reading, and talking, and enjoying the sun—do nothing. But when they realize they are being surrounded, they rise and step back, away from the angry mob. Except there is nowhere for them to go but up onto the fountain. They climb onto the walled edge of the pool and, though we can’t hear what they are saying, we see on their faces they are being harassed; they throw their arms in the air and make agitated silent remarks. The man with the bullhorn yells, “They are the altered! The unnatural! They aren’t human! Get them!” And again I don’t understand what he means but some of the surrounded are in the pool now and one of the young men still standing on the fountain side wall is struck in the head by something a protester throws. His hand flies to his face and a stream of bright red blood leaks through his fingers. With a surge, the swarm of protesters come to life. They close in on him and the other students and they disappear from my view.
Yoshiko gasps, “Oh my—”
“We have to go,” Father says, grabbing my hand as he rises from the table.
My father is no longer disgusted or agitated. My father is afraid. Afraid for us. He doesn’t bother calling over a waiter, but rushes from the table with us in tow. My shoulder burns because he is pulling my arm behind him and, though he’s not running, I must move my feet as fast as I can to keep up. We skirt the edge of the square to avoid confronting the protesters but there are so many more of them now, pouring in from Maple Street and University Drive—a horde of angry grownups looking for trouble. Father pulls us to a side street but a group is marching toward us, so he changes direction, pulling us down Willow. There is no avoiding the mass, they are everywhere. The group we run into on Willow carry the same huge white signs with red letters and symbols, and some of them hold gold-lettered books to their chests. They’re chanting as well but I don’t hear what they’re saying. I’m frightened. There is nowhere else to go away from these people, no escape, so father pulls us through them. We are weak fish, fighting against the current, deep in a sea of anger and yelling and hate. I want to cry and I want to throw up and these mean, loud people are bumping me, and squeezing me, and crushing me. Someone recognizes my father and points to him and the horde stops marching and pushes toward him. My sister and I are pulled away, and my father screams our names and disappears in the crowd.
~*~
Because we are children, the rioters spare us yet no kindness is offered. Yoshiko wraps her arms around my chest and drags me away from the madness. She hides me behind a dumpster. We hear sirens and gunshots and the pleas for help and the louder indictments. We hear the protesters proclaim the name of god but I don’t know what god would allow this much screaming.
Yoshiko holds me tight and kisses my forehead and says she loves me like no other.
The familiar words are comforting, not only because I love my sister but because I’m otherwise numb. I’m scared in a way I’ve never been before. I don’t know what’s happening or what happened to my father, and when I think of the crowd pulling him away, a clawing sensation fills my chest and stomach. Yoshiko says that is dread, and she feels it too. The reek of the burning is stronger than the filth in the dumpster and Yoshiko says we should make our way home.
We’re hesitant leaving the safety of the steel dumpster but the crowds have moved on from where we were hiding. As we creep through the neighborhood—her arm around my shoulder—we edge the sidewalk and stick close to shadow. My eyes dart across the lawns to every street corner and alley. We learn that whatever has happened—is happening—is not restricted to the square. Out in the open, we can hear the yelling and gunshots are all around us and distant. The source of the smoke fouling the air is from burning houses and cars. Not all of the houses, just those that have been singled out. We pass one and then, a block away, another. We round the corner and Yoshiko stops short, “The Warrens’,” she says. Dr. Warren works in my father’s department and her husband is a botanist. Like the two homes we’ve already seen, theirs is on fire.
None of the distant sirens seem to be coming.
As we pass on the far side of the street, we gaze into the windows. The rooms are ablaze. Some of the Warrens’ things are in the middle of the street, but as we get close I realize that the two piles are not just crumpled clothes. When my sister sees that the lumps are the Warrens’ mangled remains, she covers my eyes. “Don’t look,” she says. “Just keep moving your feet.”
I do.
Before we reach home, she covers my eyes twice more.
When we finally reach our house, we are happy to see it is not burning. But it was not passed over. They have been here. The front door is open and the words ‘Race Traitor’ are spray painted across it in red. The word ‘Unnatural’ is spray painted across the living room wall, over the face of the clock and the pictures of Yoshiko and me. The sofa has been pushed over, and papers—those that were inside my father’s desk—along with his many books, litter the floor of his den. Apart from those ransacked rooms, the rest of the house is intact.
“Why didn’t they burn our house?” I ask Yoshiko, not
expecting an answer. But she gives me one.
“Because we weren’t here.”
“Will they return?”
“Maybe. But I don’t think they’ll come for us.”
~*~
The riot continues for another day and then two. We don’t leave the house and father doesn’t return. There is plenty to eat. My sister makes us toast and cereal. We follow what is happening on the newsfeed. There has been a revolt, and a coup. My sister says that means that new people are in charge, people that—like those in the square—may not like us because of what we are. Again I don’t understand. Father taught us to accept everyone. That’s what they say in our school too. But I don’t think I’m going back to school. At least not yet. The two of us worked together to lift the heavy couch and—because we didn’t want to see the paint—we hung a sheet on the wall. Now we stay out of that room.
The phones were out but they’re back in service, except no one we try to call answers. Apart from our friends, the only people we know work with our father at the university. The man on the newsfeed says that it’s shut down, but nothing more. My sister says we have to wait, but I’m not sure for what.
We don’t have to wait long. They next day, they come for us, but not as an angry mob. Through the blinds, we see two policemen and a woman with a list on a clipboard. They knock again and this time the woman calls out our names. My sister and I look at each other, neither of us know what to do. I think hiding is best but Yoshiko calls out to them. “My father’s not here,” she says. “You should go away.”
I watch intently as the woman whispers into one of the policemen’s ears. He disappears from the step and the woman—a young short-haired ginger in a green pantsuit and blazer—responds to my sister. “We know your father isn’t home, honey. We know where he is.”
