Citizen: Season One | Uncured Series

by Maggie Ray

  I stare hard at the red dot on the wall, rigid in my seat, praying for this to be over soon. Until suddenly, there is nothing. No chair, no red dot, no machine. Like a curtain dropping over my consciousness, I fall.

  3

  In my dream, I stand above a girl asleep on the white tiles of a bathroom. Her hands and feet are blue, the digits curled and stiff. Her lips are a discomforting shade of mauve.

  She wears my face, and my own eyes stare back at me, frozen wide open, cloudy like a cured person.

  I push against her chest, like they taught us in school, but give up quickly. I know I can't save her. I’m like a ghost sobbing over her physical form, wishing I could climb back in, make my soul stick again.

  Except it’s too late. There's an empty pill bottle next to the sink.

  Even as I’m dreaming, I’m aware this isn’t a dream. It's a memory. It’s from the day I found my twin sister, Sara, on the floor of the upstairs bathroom in our old house. Except her copper hair looks drained of color, and her olive skin has turned ashen. Even her eyebrows look like they’re peeling off—like they’ve turned into crow feathers, likely to float away on a breeze.

  My sadness is a cloud of mist all around, clinging like steam to the mirrors.

  “Why would you do such a thing?” I ask.

  In answer to my question, she wakes with a wild gasp, her head turning, dead eyes blinking frantically, like a glitchy machine.

  “Don't let them take it,” she says.

  That's when I realize the face has changed. It’s not mine anymore, but Rory’s instead, her mauve lips curled softly in a haunting smile.

  “Take what?” I ask.

  “Your humanity.”

  ∆∆∆

  Coming to after your curing feels a bit like being pulled from under water. One moment you’re drowning, the next you’re not. The heart pounds and the lungs wheeze—the eyes burn when they open. Life pulses back into your bloodstream, and you can hear it in your ears, that thunderous whoosh whoosh. The rhythm of the living.

  I recognize my cotton bedsheets, even though I don't remember leaving the clinic—don’t remember being brought home. Visions from the procedure flash behind my eyelids, like the lingering effects of a nightmare.

  What have they taken from me? What pieces of myself have been ripped out?

  I search the fuzziness in my head but all I find is a black hole, gaping wide and threatening to suck me in, while images of Sara on the bathroom floor are still clinging to my peripherals.

  In real life, I hadn't tried to revive her. That was just the dream, trying to fix what I wish I'd done. The guilt coming to visit, as it often does. That heavy pang in the chest, always there to remind you of what you did—or, more accurately, what you didn't do.

  Before the guilt has a chance to overcome me, something beeps nearby, drawing my attention. Through a brief assessment, I notice an IV in my hand and a monitor at my bedside, displaying a heart rate. My heart rate. The machine ticks softly in tandem to my mounting panic, proof I'm still alive.

  I don’t have time to notice anything else before the door of my room opens with a swish.

  The woman who enters seems surprised to find me awake, if you can call it that. Her face is so serene it’s hard to tell. She strides into the room carrying a slice of smart-glass tucked into the crook of her elbow, her eyes quickly scanning the screen.

  “Sabine LeRoux,” she reads. “We’re doing another round of house calls this morning. I’m happy to see you up.”

  She speaks as though reciting a script, and she moves fast, like someone with no time to waste, making quick work of the IV and the various sensors taped to my body, ripping them off like band aids and ignoring when I wince.

  Then she slaps a strip of medical tape over the IV mark on my hand. The tape is coated with a layer of sticky medicine, which tingles as it repairs the puncture wound, but it quickly grows hot, dangerously close to pain. I have a hard time focusing on anything else, so I only catch bits of what she’s saying.

  “You’ve been out for a while—very common, perfectly normal—" She collects the pieces of medical equipment and packs them neatly into a large black case, then she slams it closed.

  I flinch. I can’t help it. Everything sounds too loud—heightened. I attempt to ask questions, but even though I can get my mouth open, my throat feels too dry to form words.

  If she notices me trying to speak, she never shows it.

  “Drink plenty of fluids.” She thrusts a water bottle in my direction. “Talk to your peacekeeper if you experience any complications.”

  In my confusion, I scarcely manage to hold the bottle. I grip it only half a second before it falls and rolls off the side of the mattress.

  I watch it disappear over the edge, so by the time I look up again, she’s gone.

  Helplessly, I stare into the empty space left behind, the ghost of a presence still lingering. Seconds or minutes tick by as my mind floats away, as though detached—as though it were a balloon tethered by nothing but the finest of threads.

  The medical tape on my hand snaps me back to reality. It has started to cool at an alarming rate, and soon it feels like a stabbing pain, stabbing through my hand like an ice pick.

  I rip the tape off and rub the patch of cold left behind, trying to restore its normal temperature. When I inspect the wound, nothing but a faint mark remains. This is definitely not the typical kind of medical tape you’d find at the store.

  I toss the offensive strip aside and go looking for the water bottle over the edge of the bed. I have to sip carefully, since my throat constricts from disuse, but within minutes I can feel the fuzziness clearing from my head. Encouraged, I drink greedily, draining the bottle of its contents so I feel well enough to try standing.

  Besides feeling the room tilt, my body seems to respond normally as I push to my feet, so I make my way to the shower on shaky legs and then into a fresh change of clothes. I'm undoubtedly slower than usual, my body a little detached and unfocused, but I manage to get the tasks done.

  On my way to the kitchen, my stomach grumbles, and it's a relief to feel something as familiar and normal as hunger. Although a part of me wonders if I shouldn't be feeling different. Isn't there supposed to be some kind of change—some kind of distinction from before the cure?

  In the kitchen, I stand at the fridge—a monument of shiny steel in the midst of a very white kitchen. There’s a screen embedded in the fridge's surface displaying food options, and my stomach grumbles again at the thought of cereal, so it must still be one of my favorites.

  Another thing, unchanged.

  The heavy footsteps of my stepfather come around the corner just as I'm settling in a chair at the kitchen island. He enters carrying an empty mug, stopping to rinse it in the sink.

  “Thought I heard something,” he says. “Glad you’re up.”

  Nothing in his voice suggests a reason for alarm, so maybe there’s nothing wrong with me after all. I relax a little as I start to eat.

  “How long have I been out?” I ask between bites.

  He shrugs. “A while.”

  I gulp my mouthful. How long is a while? I wait for him to elaborate, but he says nothing. He just gazes at me mutely—neutrally. Once he blinks, that’s when I see it. The small incision mark over his eye, like the one on my hand. A puncture wound that’s been treated.

  He’s already been cured.

  I look away quickly and stare into my cereal floating in its bowl of milk. That’s a bit how I feel right now, like I’m floating in milk.

  “Are you almost ready to go?” he asks. “We've got church today.”

  I nod without looking up, afraid of my expression.

  He drifts out the kitchen without another word, presumably to get dressed, and although he never was a chatty man, this new kind of silence chills me.

  Kid, he used to say. Let’s go, kid. Aren’t you ready yet, kid?

  I hated that, but now it seems wrong without it.

&n
bsp; We’ve never been close. We don't even belong to each other—there's nothing in our blood connecting us—but after mother died, he kept me and Sara. He didn't send us away. He promised he never would, although I believe that promise was mostly meant for my sister. It might be unfair to say he liked her more than me, but that’s how it always was with Sara. Everywhere she went, people were drawn to her, the treasured gifted child who was good at anything she put her mind to.

  Meanwhile, I was reduced to nothingness, standing next to Sara. Like flying too close to the sun and being incinerated. She was always the most interesting thing about me. Maybe even more so, now that she’s dead.

  You can’t compete with a dead person.

  Rory is the one who’s always saved me from fading away and becoming invisible, and without her in my life, I might slip into nothingness again.

  The nothingness crawls beneath my skin like an itch, and with a sudden impulse, I grab the first piece of technology within reach: a tablet of smart-glass sitting in its charging dock on the counter. We keep it here for recipes or reading the morning news.

  It’s no bigger than a book or heavier than a slice of smooth, pristine glass in my palms, but it’s one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology in the house. With access to everything from the appliances to the security system to the room temperatures, it’s like a remote control for the home.

  The surface lights up at my touch, recognizing my fingerprint. I quickly open the messaging app using my personal ID and pull up my last conversation with Rory. This one was from before, my mind compartmentalizes. Everything falls into two categories now: before or after my curing.

  An old conversation glows on the screen like a warning. Mine's a real pain, Rory had written, talking about the peacekeepers. But I hear you've got one of the worst.

  I know, I'd replied.

  His reputation had preceded him. People said awful things, and that's all I worried about those first days after their arrival. Even if you did nothing wrong, the peacekeepers made you nervous.

  I hate to think what would happen if ours saw this conversation, so I quickly erase all evidence of it and focus on writing something new.

  I’m up, I send. Just in case she’d want to know I’m okay. Followed by, are you around today?

  Then I clutch the tablet in a tight grip, waiting for a response or at least a notification the message has been received. I try not to jump to conclusions, but my pulse betrays me. It knows tragedy follows us everywhere—it’s learned to expect it around every corner.

  My scalp prickles with a familiar heat, my internal alarm going off, as I stare dejectedly at the screen for long minutes, the blue glow burning into my retinas.

  No notification comes. She hasn’t read it.

  ∆∆∆

  I hesitate outside the door to the office. When we’re at home, this is usually where the peacekeeper is, working on things he never bothers to discuss with us.

  I feel like a child being called to the principal’s office, and I consider turning back, but he probably already knows I'm here. He's heard the footsteps; he can see my shadow under the slit of the door. I have to knock.

  On the other side, the peacekeeper is bent over his desk, the walls around him thick with books. He’s silhouetted against the wall-sized window at his back, the smart-glass set at half-tint, casting us in a dusty light. Somewhere above, the air exchanger sighs, almost inaudibly, sucking the dust from the room.

  I approach cautiously, a small shiver tickling the back of my neck, as though there's a spider there. I stop in front of the desk, hands held behind my back, nerves tight in my belly.

  “Thank you for coming to see me,” he says, not bothering to look up from the slice of smart-glass in his hands. He has it on privacy mode, so the glass isn't see-through from my end, but the glow illuminates his features, tracing the sharp lines, painting his skin a soft shade of digital blue. “I heard you were up and wanted to know how you're feeling.”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Speak up, please.”

  “I said I feel fine.”

  He nods. “Well then, we'll be leaving shortly for church, as scheduled.”

  “Yes, my stepfather said.”

  A beat of silence as the peacekeeper stares at his screen, squares of light illuminated into his eyes, in place of where his pupils should be.

  When I don’t leave the room like I'm supposed to, he slowly looks up again. “Was there something you wanted?”

  “I was wondering if I could take the car out?” It seems ridiculous that I have to ask for permission, but this is our reality now.

  “We always walk to church.” The walking part is important, like a preparation for what's to follow.

  “No, I meant after.”

  He’s staring at me now, making me feel like I'm guilty of something—like I’ve been caught red-handed. “What for?”

  “To visit a friend.” To check that Rory is okay.

  “It's not safe right now, you know that.”

  “I know, but—"

  Before I can finish my sentence, the peacekeeper is shaking his head at me. My words trail into silence.

  “Things have gotten worse,” he says, “in the weeks since your curing.”

  At the word weeks, my face nearly cracks from the effort to keep it still.

  “There have been some complications. Not everyone is cooperating like they should. It's better if we stay here for now, and try to avoid venturing out for unnecessary reasons.”

  “Are we in danger?”

  He shakes his head at me. “Speak up, please, Sabine.”

  I repeat the question, louder this time, bringing the sounds forward with a forced, conscious effort. “Are we in danger?”

  The word danger comes out a hint too loud, the smallest trace of panic embedded in my voice.

  “It's just a precaution. It's better if everyone stays in their homes right now.”

  “Is that normal?” I ask. “That it's taking so long?”

  Those eyes of his narrow, blue like the uniforms the healers wear, and I notice they give off the same effect: a discomforting intention to soothe, no matter how unsootheing the presence.

  The guilty feeling worsens.

  “Are you sure you're feeling alright?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shakes his head some more. He does that a lot, it seems like, especially at me. “If you're tired, you should rest.”

  “I think I've been resting enough.” The word weeks is still ringing in my ears.

  His eyes snap up and I immediately know I've said the wrong thing. He smiles for the first time since we've met. It’s a false gesture, and although well rehearsed, it pinches all around his mouth and his eyes.

  The smile transforms him. I feel the room shift, and suddenly it all makes sense—it all clicks into place. Him, the rumors.

  The smile says, I am dangerous.

  “You should go get ready,” he says. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”

  I know a dismissal when I hear one, so I turn feebly and march out of the room, while a deep inner instinct rises to haunt me: Something's wrong. I can feel it, the wrongness. It lives inside me, slithering like a snake, wrapping around my organs. Tighter and tighter.

  4

  We go to church on foot like we're supposed to, all of us from the neighborhood crowding the sidewalks, walking with practiced unison beneath the shade of the trees.

  There is something about the walking that is meant to unite us—to humble us. A reminder that we are all tethered to the earth by the same gravity.

  The leaves rustle overhead when the wind blows, as though softly laughing, and the pavement burns white under the morning sun, leaving shiny blobs behind my eyelids.

  All the streets in my neighborhood look the same, each side like a mirror-image of the other. The houses are perfect cubes of white with wall-sized windows in shimmery panes of smart-glass, reflecting us back at us when we walk by. We are projec
ted onto them, people-shaped reflections with the peacekeepers hovering closely at our backs, moving like an army of prison guards, urging us all forward in a slow march, legs scissoring to the beat of a silent drum.

  My stepfather looks at me, and I'm struck again by the new emptiness in his dark eyes. “You’re not feeling faint, are you?”

  I shake my head, not trusting my voice.

  “That’s good,” he says. “I did, after I woke up.”

  I still say nothing. Truth is, I expected to feel different—to feel some sort of physical change, confirming that the cure has worked—but the air today is soft and the sun is warm, and I feel completely normal. At least physically. Which seems wrong somehow, but I don't say that out loud.

  As we approach, our little church is a triangle of windowless black steel, rising on the horizon like a sharp and jagged mountaintop. It fills quickly on Sundays, people lining up at the doors. The inside is all dark wood, thick and ornate like chocolate.

  Once we're in, we stand huddled together in the pews for morning prayer, tapping the side of our hands with our fingers, heads down and eyes closed. At the end we say, I accept fully and completely. It's supposed to be a form of self-curing.

  The peacekeepers remain in the aisles and at the doors, like bodyguards. They look strangely ominous; all of them standing tall in their black coats, like messengers of death—like crows. It makes our tiny church feel more cramped than usual.

  After we're permitted to sit, the choir files onto the stands. The shiny grey robes of the singers contrast the dark walls, and I believe it’s meant to make them look modest, and therefore holy, but they’ve always looked so flat and plain to me, like aluminum paper. It seems disrespectful, like they haven’t bothered to dress right for the occasion.

  The singers assume their places, and straight away, I notice there are holes in their formation. It's impossible not to notice, like a smile with missing teeth. I search the faces, trying to find Rory, but she isn’t there. She’s one of the holes.

  I grip the edge of my seat as they begin to sing, their voices coalescing into a well-rehearsed melody, the vibrations rising high into the peaked ceiling. Even though I try, my hands won’t release the bench, fingers curled inwards in a way that’s sure to lodge splinters into my nail beds. I’m not sure I breathe once during the entire first song, and my head starts to pound from the lack of air.