The Vanished Birds

by Simon Jimenez

  I am still angry at you, but I hope you are doing okay. I hope that your work is what you hoped it would be. I wish you were here. I miss your seriousness. Maybe your work will not take too long. I hold on to the chance that we will see each other again before the year is out. I have a lot of yelling to do.

  Dana

  The letters came with some frequency, about every two to three months. Fumiko pored over them again and again, for days after their arrival, listening to the Dana in her head speak the words in that warm whisper of hers. Fumiko’s subordinates never knew why there were those rare days when she was made of light.

  The next letter was sent after the brainstorming had finished, and the first preliminary drafts were sculpted in Umbai’s enclosed virtual space.

  I am, from here on in, an employee of Arboreus. My first assignment is in the Federated States. I leave Okinawa in three weeks. I thought I would be sadder to leave this place. It’s frustrating that my love for the city has been colored by our time together, as if somehow the mere fact of you has changed the chemistry in my brain, and all I can think about is what might’ve been.

  You’ll be happy(?) to know that M. Toho still sings your praises—it’s like I can’t escape! He goes on and on about your discipline and focus. And while I know that both of those things are true, I can’t help but think about the vid of you that went viral last year. I never told you this, but the first time I saw that vid, when I saw you shouting at your subordinate, I was put off. You seemed cruel. I wasn’t sure why M. Toho was so enamored of you before we got to know each other. Geniuses are born all the time, but kindness is rarer, these days especially. The world could use more kindness. I’m rambling. I’m not trying to tear you down. I just want to vent.

  Take this letter as evidence that I am still thinking about you, and that, despite my self-interest, I am still waiting.

  With each letter, Fumiko became more certain that she had chosen well—the sacrifice she made, for the creation of a place where new love could bloom. Between the arrivals of the letters, her most treasured time was folding the headset over her eyes and disappearing into virtual space. She liked the power that was at her fingertips, the ability to mold the lines and shapes before her into comprehensible, even beautiful, objects; with a few practiced gestures, the wings of the first station took shape, and folded out from the main body as if in flight.

  This is my first time in Louisiana. The people here are decent, but many of them are unused to designer babies. My face startles them, even my eyes. You can tell the difference between colored contacts and true pigment augmentation. There’s a group of children who follow me every afternoon while I patrol the panel fields south of town. They call me Sister Angel. I think one of the girls has a crush on me. Every Friday she gives me a rose from her father’s garden—or rather, she leaves it on top of my backpack when she thinks I can’t see her. It’s adorable. Her name is Huck. I asked her if she was named after the literary figure, but she didn’t know what I was talking about.

  I’m worried about the solar field itself. My boss and I discovered that someone had wired illegal jacks into the panels of the eastern quadrant. Following the jack lines, we discovered that there’s a suburb a few miles away that has been siphoning off more than their allotted share of electricity. People’s homes are going dark because of them. The frustrating thing is that we can’t do anything. When we contacted the authorities, they stonewalled us, told us there was nothing that could be done. This is of course bullshit. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they’re being paid under the table by the thieves. Sustainability is great in theory, where there are no humans involved.

  It was decided that there would be four stations in total: Pelican, Macaw, Barbet, and Thrasher, each modeled in the likeness of its namesake.

  The first eight months of work were devoted to Pelican Station, which would act as a template for the other three. There was some difficulty in fulfilling Fumiko’s vision, the massive articulated wings, the vacuum elevators that would pipe through the belly of the station like arteries, the kilometers-long strip between the wings, where principal commerce would take place, but it was done. Umbai had spared no expense on the quality of its personnel, or its technology. Fumiko was in awe of the resources at her disposal, as though the company had been preparing for this project for a very long time.

  New border lines are drawn each day. My friends and I used to drive to the nature preserve fifteen miles east of here every other week to see the tree tunnels and hike through the protected bog areas, but a month ago we were stopped by a guarded tollgate. They told us the land now belonged to St. Abner—the suburbs I told you about before. They haven’t stopped at just stealing power, now buying up land from the government, expanding their acreage. Families evicted from the homes they’ve been living in for years. Some of my colleagues are resigned; say this is the history of our species, and the best we can do is win the tiny battles and hope for some sea change. The more I see, the more difficult it is to disagree with them. But a part of me still revolts against the notion that this is our basic nature; that we are, in essence, self-serving creatures. That love is an explainable construct and souls are a pretty feint to distract ourselves from our own cruel emptiness. I just reread that last sentence. What the hell am I turning into?

  The first vertical slice of Pelican Station was completed. There was a celebratory party in the conference hall, which Fumiko did not attend. One of her subordinates brought a flute of Champagne up to her apartment on the thirty-third floor. She accepted the drink, and after she shut the door in his face, she poured the alcohol down the sink drain, refilled it with cool water, and sipped it on her balcony as she gazed up at the night sky. She imagined a possible future where she and Dana would ride out on the Ark ship, sleep away the present, and arrive in time for the coronation of Pelican. She imagined how beautiful Dana would look, standing on the tip of the station’s wing, suspended below the ceiling of stars, silhouetted by the holy white sun. How they would escape this place, together, and perform their own ascension.

  There are refugee tents along the western border. We’ve been building new panels, but it’s not enough to accommodate the population. Many live by candlelight now (in fact, wax is melting beside me as I write). Huck has been helping me on the weekends. In the morning we go to the tents to help feed those who have no homes, and after lunch, we go out to the fields and solder the wiring the wild animals have chewed through during the night. I’ve met her parents a few times. Decent enough people, if a little dazed. They smile like they’re not sure what year it is, or what day. It is a marvel that their daughter is so in tune with her surroundings, so aware. With a few cursory lessons, Huck has picked up the foundational principles at work behind the panels. She even helped me fix one! It hasn’t been easy living here, but her friendship has been invaluable.

  The mosquitoes bothered me at first, as did the extreme heat (it’s 32 Celsius on a good day), but I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty. Louisiana is one of the few places left in the world where you can stand in one spot and not see any buildings, aside from the Colombian Elevator, but even that is just a thin vertical line on the horizon. It disappears if you squint. You can convince yourself that you are surrounded by nothing but earth and sky and willows. I find myself doing this more and more, as new sectors of the panel fields fritz out, and more power is stolen by those who cannot be stopped.

  It is a comfort, of sorts, to phase it all out.

  In the days leading to the completion of Barbet’s vertical slice, Fumiko sat alone in her room during her free time, plugged into the virtual ecosystem. Like Dana, who stood in the middle of the Louisiana plains to disappear for a while, Fumiko had taken to escaping inside this private world, where there was nothing but black and light, and a grid of malleable lines. Sometimes she would raze these lines, and construct out of them a woman’s face, with short hair and pointed ears. For hours
she would create these abstractions of love.

  Eighteen people were gunned down at the gates of St. Abner. They went to protest the town’s devouring of land and power. Started as a peaceful protest, but someone in the group drew a pistol, and the guards in the tower fired back with automatic weapons. Huck was there. I told her how important it was to fight for what was hers, and now she’s dead. It’s my fault. I went to see the body. I felt I had to. Her parents were there in the morgue. Her mother told me to look at what they did to her daughter so I looked. Her jaw was blown off. She was thirteen. This world is on life support, Fumiko. With every day, I am more convinced that maybe the plug needs to be pulled. I am angry and frustrated and sadder than I’ve been in a very long time and what I wouldn’t give to be in Okinawa again with you to watch the cherry blossoms. But unless the project you are working on is a time machine, there is no going back. We’re stuck in today.

  There were more discussions to be had, more work to sign off on, more version numbers of component systems. However acute Dana’s pain was, Fumiko was unpracticed in the ways of long-distance empathy; aside from the clumsy reconstructions she created of her in virtual space, it was difficult to spare a thought for her as her responsibilities fractaled every week and demanded more of her attention. She told herself this was just as well, that there was nothing she could do for Dana anyway—no way to get in contact and tell her to hold on, that she was still coming, one day.

  And then the last letter came.

  It was January. They were midway through the development of Thrasher Station. The attendant handed her the letter with a smile, oblivious of its contents.

  I’ve met someone. She is a colleague of mine. We met during a summit in DC two months ago, and she has been visiting me in Louisiana every few weeks. I would tell you her name, I would tell you all about her, but I’ll spare you those details. The reason I’m telling you this is so you don’t expect me to be waiting for you on the other side of your project, on the off chance that you were still expecting me to. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. There was a time in my life where I would’ve waited for you, but now, seeing how everything is falling apart, I no longer think of time as a luxury to be spent. I needed someone, so I found someone.

  My time in the Federated States will soon be over. I will be flying to Iceland next, to observe the magma wells. This will be my last letter to you. If you get this—if you have been getting any of my letters—know that I will always treasure the brief time we spent together, and that I hope you are happy, or at least feel complete in some way.

  Dana Schneider

  Fumiko did not tear up the letter, or burn it, or toss it off the balcony. She was never given to melodramatic gestures. Instead she folded the paper back up, placed it back in its envelope, and left it on her desk, as though it were meant for someone else.

  She left her penthouse.

  Yes, she thought as the elevator plummeted toward the offices. Back to it.

  * * *

  —

  Four years.

  That was how long she lived in the Umbai Building before she emerged in the public sphere with her plans for the completed stations. The draft was displayed in the gallery alongside the other designs from other companies in the Louvre. The crowded room, brimming with the well-dressed elite, toasted her and her project, and they applauded as she gave the draft her final assignation, with a quill dipped in rich, black ink.

  Four Stations

  F. Nakajima

  Feb. 23, 2136

  * * *

  —

  PrivateEyes snapped the occasion, surrounding her with hundreds of uncanny winks.

  Umbai commissioned a renowned biographer to describe the creation of the stations, though much of the information was, in the end, redacted. As per her contract, Fumiko attended the book signings and gave interviews. During the last few months of her time with the company, they trained her in the art of public speaking, and though she was still a bit clumsy socially and often regressed to blunt or overly technical answers, her mother told her she’d made noticeable improvements.

  Aki was still alive, her thin body still sustained on her calorie counter. She was not upset with her daughter for not saying goodbye, not after she learned that Fumiko would be stepping out into the public arena. She attended whatever signings were physically possible for her to attend, dressed in full regalia, pushing herself into view of the Feed. “Let my daughter be a lesson to the world,” she said to the many PrivateEyes recording her, “that society’s idealization of physical beauty is wrong—that beauty comes in many forms, the most wonderful being the brilliance of the mind.” It did not escape Fumiko, how her mother’s freshly tightened skin would blush when people asked if they were sisters.

  The first few weeks of PR were exhausting for Fumiko, but she was surprised to find that once she had given enough interviews and talks and signatures she somewhat liked the attention. Though there was still the odd person who commented on her physical appearance, most of the attention, and praise, was directed toward her work. It pleased her that her birds were getting their due rewards, even if their namesakes were, by this point, near extinction; at least they would live on in some way.

  Dana was never far from her mind. When she looked into a crowd she would sometimes see blond bangs paired with ostentatious purple eyes and her heart would skip before realizing it was a stranger’s beauty-standard face that gazed back at her, starstruck. In time the public circuit did its job of distracting her enough to make her think she had moved on, only rediscovering the pain during the moments before sleep, when she was most aware of how alone she was, in bed, with no body beside her. She would pick up her Handheld, her thumb wavering over the contact address, but she would never call. She was too afraid, and still too hurt.

  Soon the year was almost ended. Umbai’s plans were well under way, and Fumiko’s victory lap was drawing to a close. She was on the rooftop of a residential tower in Cape Town, attending an early New Year’s party in mid-December, when her Handheld vibrated in her back pocket. She almost didn’t pick up when she saw the name on the screen, but her hand moved on its own accord, and she answered.

  “Congratulations,” Dana said, with such collegial warmth, it was as if it had been only days since they had last spoken.

  The sound of Fumiko’s world dimmed out. She stepped away from the crowd and the trays of flaky hors d’oeuvres and rare meats, and leaned on a railing from where she could see the slanted roofs of the city below, and the dirigible above, which floated close enough that she could hear the whirring of the coolant as it was pumped from its ventilation. Moonlight gilded all. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Mongolia. I was served spaghetti with ketchup the other day. The waiter said it was a local delicacy, but I’m dubious.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I would hear from you again.”

  Dana laughed. “That was the original plan. But then I saw your face on the cover of a magazine, and I thought, That can’t be Fumiko. Fumiko doesn’t smile! So I thought I’d call and find out if you were replaced by a robotic facsimile during your time with Umbai.”

  Fumiko didn’t want to smile, but she did. “I’m not a robot. Not yet.”

  “Good. It’s…really nice to hear your voice. I’m sorry if that sounds weird, considering how long it’s been, but I needed to say it. And I wanted to let you know that, for what it’s worth, I am so impressed by the work you’ve done. I haven’t had a chance to see the plans in person—one day I’ll visit France—but I’ve seen shots on the Feed. The designs are beautiful.”

  Though Dana’s voice was staticked by the distance, she felt so close to Fumiko that, if she shut her eyes, she could smell the fresh wheat of her hair. She felt she had no choice but to ask, “Are you still with her?”

  There was a pause. “Yes. We are still together.”

  “Are you
happy?”

  “I am.” There was a sigh. “Are you?”

  “I thought I was.”

  “I shouldn’t have called. This was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Fumiko almost yelled it. A few people even glanced at her, worried. She whispered, “Don’t hang up. Please.”

  “…I won’t. Is there something you wanted to say?”

  So many things. She fell quiet as she gazed out from the balcony. “Tell me it was worth it.”

  “I’ve told you, the designs are exquisite. I mean, I have literally no experience in your field, but aesthetically—”

  “No,” she said, the Handheld pressed so firm against her mouth the skin began to redden. “Tell me I made the right choice.”

  “I— Fumiko. Only you can tell yourself that.”

  There was a hollowness in Fumiko. She needed to feel. She needed Dana to hurt, to react in some way other than professional courtesy. “You’re so wise. What self-help Feedboard did you steal that line from?”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Why didn’t you just wait? If you waited, everything would’ve been”—she shut her eyes—“it would’ve worked out. We would’ve been happy.”