by AJ Steiger
“Whatever.” She walks out of the bathroom, leaving me standing alone. The image on the screen fades, shifting to an ad for Lucid memory enhancers. I swallow, trying to Banish The Sudden Tightness In My Throat, And Leave The Bathroom.
I don’t have any trouble talking to my clients or the other trainees at IFEN headquarters. Why can’t I seem to strike up a conversation with anyone at school?
Back at my desk, I try to focus. Behind me, I hear voices. I glance over my shoulder and see the girl with the wavy dark hair whispering something to the redhead beside her. They notice me watching, and their expressions harden.
I turn back toward the front of the room, face burning. A slight tremor creeps into my hands, and I tuck them under my armpits.
My cell phone vibrates in my pocket, and I wince.
We aren’t supposed to have cell phones in class. Normally, I leave mine in the car, but I’ve been so muddled today, I forgot I was carrying it.
Discreetly, I fish the phone out.
YOU HAVE ONE MESSAGE.
My first thought is that it must be from Ian, but when I glance at the number, I don’t recognize it. I open it anyway. There’s a short, simple message, the words crisp and black against the white screen:
I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.
I text back:
TO WHOM AM I SPEAKING?
LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER.
There’s a boy sitting six rows back, in the corner of the room—a boy with shaggy white-blond hair and a silver collar around his neck, looking straight at me.
Steven Bent.
I’ve never really spoken to him. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but rumors float around him like clouds of dark mist. Voices drift through my memory, snippets of overheard whispers.
He’s a Type Four. See the collar?
No way! They’re letting Type Fours go to school with the rest of us now?
I heard they made him go through Conditioning twelve times.
I heard he was expelled from his last school for biting a chunk of skin from another guy’s face.
And now, apparently, he wants to talk to me.
Ms. Biddles barely glances at the students as she lectures in her nasally monotone. I don’t think she notices my silent conversation with Steven, and the guard seems preoccupied with something on his sleeve—a stain?—but I hunch over my phone and curl my arm around it. I pretend to type notes into my desk screen as I text:
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO TALK ABOUT?
NEED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING. IN PERSON.
MEET ME IN THE PARKING LOT AFTER SCHOOL.
I bite my lower lip, unease stirring within me.
AND IF I SAY NO?
He stares across the room. His eyes drill into mine. My palms are damp with sweat, and my pulse flutters in my throat, but I don’t drop my gaze.
At last, he replies.
YOUR CHOICE.
The guard’s head turns toward me. I quickly slip my phone into my pocket and focus on the front of the room.
If Steven won’t even tell me what he wants, it can’t be anything good, can it? Or do I only think that because I’ve heard so many unpleasant rumors about him?
In my head, I see him sitting alone at lunch, picking at a bag of potato chips and staring into space. I don’t know what his life is like outside of school, but I don’t think he has any friends. No one seems willing to give him a chance.
When the guard isn’t looking, I slip my phone out and rapidly text:
OK.
At the very least, I want to find out what this is about. The parking lot is a safe place to meet, isn’t it? There’ll probably be other students around, and of course, the area’s monitored by security cameras.
The rest of the school day goes by in a blur. After the last class is dismissed, I linger outside the main doors, staring at the parking lot, a sea of pavement surrounding the enormous gray block that is Greenborough. A cement wall encircles the lot, and there’s a gate at the far end with a camera mounted overhead. I look around but don’t see Steven.
As other students walk past me toward the bus, a few cast uncertain glances in my direction. We’re not supposed to loiter. At school, the way to avoid getting taken in for a scan is to keep walking, keep your head down, and move in groups. Loners are likely to get reported, no matter what they’re doing. When a passing guard squints at me suspiciously, I smile and say, “I’m just waiting for someone.”
A cold, sleety rain hammers the ground, and the sky overhead is thick with charcoal clouds. I wind a scarf around my neck and pull up the hood of my white button-down coat, shivering. Maybe Steven changed his mind about meeting me. Maybe I should just go home.
Then I spot the tall, thin figure standing next to a streetlight at the far end of the lot. He’s facing away from me, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched.
I trudge across the parking lot, slush squishing beneath my boots. “Steven?” I call.
He turns toward me.
In the harsh glare of the streetlight, his white-blond hair nearly glows. He’s wearing a faded brown jacket that looks like it’s been gnawed by wild dogs, and the circles around his eyes are so pronounced that for a moment, I wonder if he’s wearing eyeliner. But no—I recognize the effects of insomnia. I’ve seen the same dark circles in the mirror.
I walk a few steps closer and stop.
“You’re a Mindwalker, right?” His voice sounds different than I expected—younger, not as deep—but there’s a scratchy roughness to it, as if he has a sore throat.
I shift my weight, gripping the straps of my backpack, wondering how he knows. I don’t usually talk about my training at school, but it’s not exactly a secret, either. “Yes,” I say. “I am. What did you want to ask me about?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it, crossing his arms over his chest. His fingers clench his sleeves, knuckles white. “Hang on,” he mutters. He turns partially away from me, fishes something tiny and round from his pocket—a pill?—and pops it into his mouth.
I feel a twinge of nervous impatience. Then I notice the tremor in his hands, the way he won’t quite meet my gaze.
He’s afraid. Of me? No, probably not. I’m about as intimidating as a hamster.
“Sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not sure how to ask this.”
“It’s all right.” Icy raindrops trickle under my shirt collar, down my back. My teeth are starting to chatter. And I’m wearing a coat. It must be worse for him. I glance at my car, which is parked just a few spaces away.
This might be a bad idea, but in spite of everything people say about him, I find I’m not scared. It’s hard to be scared of someone when he’s shivering like a half-drowned puppy. “Do you want to get out of the rain?” I unlock my car and open the passenger-side door.
His brows knit.
“There’s a restaurant I go to sometimes after school,” I say. “We can talk there.”
His expression remains hard and blank, guarded. After a moment, he nods.
We get into the car. When I close the door, the dashboard lights up. “Take us to the Underwater Café.”
The car pulls out of the spot.
“Fasten your seat belts,” a clear female voice intones.
I fasten my belt. Steven doesn’t.
“In the unlikely event of a crash,” the car continues pleasantly, “a safety belt reduces your risk of injury by forty-five percent. Please put it on, or I will be forced to stop this vehicle in accordance with city law.”
He rolls his eyes, buckles his seat belt, and makes a rude gesture at the dashboard.
I blink at him.
He clears his throat. “Sorry.” He sits, with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, back rigid with tension, as the car pulls out of the lot and down the street. “I don’t trust these talking cars. One of these days, they’re going to rebel and start suffocating us with their airbags.”
I let out a small laugh, and he looks at me in surprise. A faint fl
ush rises into his cheeks.
What kind of sociopath blushes so easily?
The windshield wipers sweep back and forth as we drive. After a few minutes, the car pulls into a lot and stops. “We’re here,” I say.
The Underwater Café is located in a more well-to-do part of the city. The buildings here are sleek, modern, and clean, and the cameras are concealed in bushes or decorative fixtures. Drug advertisements shimmer across the sides of skyscrapers—smiling faces, brightly colored logos, and sprawling landscapes rendered in hundreds of tiny screens that constantly change, creating the illusion of movement. A group of laughing, attractive young men and women descend the steps of an elite-looking private university under the words
Unleash your potential with Lucid.
A dimpled, blue-eyed baby smiles from a NewVitro ad pleading:
Don’t play roulette with my DNA!
No Somnazol ads here. You mostly see them in low-income areas.
I get out of the car. Steven follows me.
I lead him to the restaurant’s entrance, which is tucked away in an alcove. Water flows between two thick panes in the glass door, as if the door itself is a waterfall.
Inside, everything is a cool, deep blue. A long, softly lit hallway and a set of stairs going down into the restaurant lobby. The walls shimmer, and bright holographic fish swim about the room. Steven waves a hand at one, as if to shoo it away, and his fingers pass through it. “Feels like we’re stuck in a giant fishbowl,” he says.
“I like the atmosphere here. It’s soothing.”
“Even with all these fake fish trying to swim up your nose?”
“You get used to them.”
We find a secluded corner booth, and I order a cup of chai tea on the touch screen tabletop. Steven doesn’t order anything. He drums his fingers on the table. Looking at him, I have the impression of a ball of coiled energy. His movements are quick and jerky, like a bird’s. Beneath his jacket, a rain-soaked T-shirt clings to his thin body.
A compartment on the table slides open, and my tea rises up on a tiny platform. I take a sip. “So, what’s this about?”
He brushes his shaggy bangs out of his eyes, and I see that they’re pale blue, translucent as stained glass. “There’s something I want to forget.”
Slowly, I set my tea down. I’m not particularly surprised—why else would he seek out a Mindwalker?—but for a moment, I’m not sure what to say. Ordinarily, clients come to me through IFEN. No one has ever approached me directly. It’s just not done. “If you’re considering neural modification therapy, you should contact the Institute for Ethics in Neurotechnology. They’ll get you started with the paperwork and a counseling session. I can give you a number to call. In fact, I can call them now, if you want.” I take my cell phone out of my pocket. He grabs my wrist.
I freeze.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice very soft. He releases me, but I can still feel the outline of his fingers on my skin.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t—” He stops himself. “I don’t want to deal with doctors and procedures and all that. I don’t want anyone else to know about this. I just want to forget.”
I pull a few strands of wet hair from my face. My gaze catches on his collar. It gleams, a silver crescent wrapped around the back of his neck, tapering down to narrow points that almost meet at the base of his throat.
The collar is hooked into the wearer’s nervous system; it monitors blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, and other biological data, feeding a steady stream of information to a computer in IFEN. It’s someone’s job to track all that data and keep a close eye on the people who are under heavy stress, the ones who seem liable to snap.
What is it like, knowing that no matter where you are or where you go, someone’s tracking your biodata, scrutinizing your emotions?
I trace the handle of my cup. “This incident you want to forget, is it a relatively recent experience, or …”
“No. It happened when I was eight.”
“I see.”
He arches an eyebrow. “That a problem?”
“Well …it makes things more complicated. A recent trauma can be wiped away without affecting someone’s personality much, but childhood memories are woven deeply into an individual’s identity. And, you know, once memories are erased, they can’t be recovered. It’s not something to be done lightly. It will permanently change you, and it will affect your relationships with others as well.”
He lets out a short, harsh laugh. “You think I have relationships?”
“At least your parents …”
“Never met ’em.”
“Oh,” I whisper. No parents, no friends. He truly is alone.
He stares at the wall. “I don’t know if you can help me or not. Don’t know why you’d want to, really. It’s not like I’ve got any money. But I thought I’d ask. Just in case.” His thin, pale lips twist in a smile. “Hell, what have I got to lose?” He says it like it’s a joke, but if it is, I don’t get it.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “It’s not a matter of what I want. I’m not licensed to perform unsupervised treatments. I’ll have to talk to my superiors first. There are procedures for a reason, you know.”
His jaw tightens. “Do you know what I am?”
I find myself staring at the collar again. I’m pretty sure the question is rhetorical, but I answer, “You’re a Type Four. Right?”
“How many Fours have you treated?”
I frown, thinking. “None, yet. But then, I’m still technically in training. Maybe once I’m more experienced—”
He shakes his head. “They don’t give us fancy new therapies like memory modification. They don’t want us to get better. They want us gone.”
“What do you mean?”
His gaze jerks away. “Never mind.” He starts to stand.
There’s a little lurch of alarm in my chest. “Wait.”
He stops, then sits back down. His thin shoulders are tense, sharp beneath his jacket.
Steven’s very nearly a stranger to me. There’s no reason for me to go out of my way for his sake. It would be simpler to let him walk away. And yet … somehow, I can’t. Maybe it’s just that he’s in need, and I’ve never been able to turn my back on someone in need. But there’s something more, something about Steven himself that draws me. “Even if I can’t erase your memories, I still want to help you.”
His eyes narrow. “Why?”
“You’re suffering. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“Who says I’m suffering?”
I stare at him.
A muscle twitches in his jaw. He breaks eye contact, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. When he speaks again, his voice is so soft, I have to strain to hear it. “I don’t think anyone can help me.”
The words spark something defiant inside me, a small, hot flame. “That isn’t true. No one is beyond help.”
Still, he doesn’t look at me. “So will you erase my memories or not?”
My mind races. A holographic clown fish flits past my face, distracting me. The low hum of conversation from other tables ebbs and flows in my ears.
Of course I can’t do what he wants. I can’t ignore rules and procedures and jeopardize my career. But I have the clear, inexplicable feeling that if I let him walk away now, I’ll never see him again. I breathe in slowly. “I need some time to think about this.”
His arms are crossed, fingers digging into his biceps. “How long?”
“Two days. Will you meet me here again in two days, after school?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
I guess that’s the closest thing to a commitment I’m going to get.
He starts to stand again, and I realize I don’t want him to go. Not yet. “Before you leave, tell me one thing about yourself.”
He sits, looking baffled. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything. What do you like to do in your free time? Do you read, or listen to music,
or …”
His brow furrows, and his eyes narrow slightly, as if he thinks the question might be a trap. “I draw,” he says at last.
“Really? What sorts of things?”
“Ponies and daffodils.”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. Sarcasm suits him. “Well, I do appreciate a good pony sketch. Next time we meet, will you bring a few of your drawings?”
“I don’t have anything to bring. When I’m finished, I burn them.”
I blink. “Why?”
“There’s no point in keeping them. I don’t show them to anyone.”
“Well, why not change that?”
He squints, as if trying to see through an optical illusion, then gives his head a shake. “I should get going.”
“Here.” I unwind the scarf from my neck and hold it out to him. His expression becomes puzzled. “Take it,” I urge. “You’re not dressed for the weather.”
“What about you?”
“I have a coat.” I stretch out my arm a little farther. “Just promise you’ll bring it back. Okay?”
There’s a flash of something in his eyes. Longing? Hunger? He starts to reach out—then stops. “You should keep it,” he mutters. “I can handle the cold.” He walks from the restaurant, and the door swings shut.
My arm, still holding the scarf, drops impotently to my side. A small sigh escapes me. Boys.
A bill for the chai flashes onto my cell phone, and I pay for it with a few taps of my finger on the screen. It occurs to me that I never even asked him about the memories he wants erased. Whatever they are, they must be terrible. By and large, people don’t seek out Mindwalkers unless they’re desperate.
It’s still raining when I leave the restaurant. Steven doesn’t have a vehicle. Is he planning to walk to the nearest mono station? It’s three miles away, at least. Well, if he wants to get soaked and catch a cold, I suppose that’s his business.
I slide into my car and shut the door. As the car pulls out into the street, I lean back, closing my eyes.
Steven Bent. I repeat the name a few times to myself.
I do want to help him, but it’s more than that. He intrigues me. Maybe because we’re both outsiders at school, albeit for very different reasons.
