by Sarah Noffke
“Parker, I’m sorry to have come here, but thank you. Thank you for the maps and for the key card and agreeing to see Rogue.”
“How is he?” he asks, his face instantly coated with concern.
A thought accosts me. Stuns me. “Actually, he hasn’t had a headache in the last day,” I say, realizing how strange that is. He always has headaches. Every day. Two or three a day.
Parker nods, but in his expression he seems to be contemplating something. Calculating.
“You still can’t think of any reason he won’t see you?” I question.
“No. Not one.”
“It’s so strange too,” I say, pulling my beanie off my head, which is now sweltering from the heat of the house. “And then even stranger is why I don’t have the headaches too.” I slide my hair back, which has frizzed from the autumn humidity.
“I actually have an answer for that one,” Parker says, although he doesn’t look too keen to share.
“Go on.”
“I’ve been investigating, as you know, and found out that Rogue may be alone in suffering from his headaches.”
Instantly my heart sinks to leagues below any salvageable place inside of me. It’s not that I want to suffer alongside Rogue, but I can’t know he’s the only one. He can’t be.
“Rogue was the first Defect and in being so he received the first synthesized formulas,” Parker says as he begins to pace, staring at the tiled linoleum. “As you know, those formulas were synthesized from spinal fluid from brand new babies. All twelve of those withdrawals were actually used in injections given to Rogue. Then, according to what you said, they started taking the spinal fluid from older infants and—”
“Because the first twelve died from it,” I say, my words hostile.
“Right,” Parker says, his voice a croak. “So the next formula, which would have been what new Defects received, was synthesized from these more mature Middling children.”
“Parker,” I say, a bite in my voice. He jumps slightly, but continues pacing. “What are you saying?”
He pauses and turns to face me. “If my inclination is correct, then the cerevitium given to Rogue was too strong. That formula wasn’t right yet and that’s the reason he gets the headaches and you don’t.”
“What?” I say, clapping my hand to my mouth from the loudness of my voice. “What does that mean for him? What can we do?”
“I’m looking into it. I think there might be a remedy, but I need more time. Rogue was exposed to too much of a potent formula. His lateral prefrontal cortex was overwhelmed and then when he escaped…well, it’s like an addict going off a drug, but not precisely like that. I’m not certain exactly what’s going on with him. This is all conjecture, but if I could see him, if you persuade him, then I’ll solidify what I’m hypothesizing. Nevertheless, I believe that he’s probably suffering from some brain damage and it’s definitely caused by those early injections.”
My insides squirm with unease. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Fear chases my thoughts around, making it impossible to think. But I do know that even if I have to trick Rogue, I need to get him to Parker. I have to. Rogue might have an instinct on this, but I’m pretty certain that mine is stronger. And it tells me that no matter what, I need to bring Rogue to Parker to have him examined. Then he’ll find a way to fix him for good. Then we’ll live without the worry and pain. And once we put an end to Vider’s rule, then we’ll really live our lives. Happily.
“Thank you,” I say to Parker, who’s looking at his watch. “I hope you figure out your plans, but please know I might need your help with Rogue in the future.”
“And if I’m here, then you’ll have it. Send a message and I’ll meet you both somewhere.”
“Okay,” I say. I open the back door and dart through the yard, all the while hoping I’m unseen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rogue’s situation overwhelms my thoughts. Blankets them as I scrunch up my shoulders and hustle out of the alley. He’s better now, but will it last? And Parker could help, but how do I convince Rogue to see that? And now we’re facing an impossible mission with a rushed timeline. Every part of my current reality is wrong. All these pieces I have to wrestle with don’t fit. I want to chuck them back at the gods. Ask for better odds. Better pieces. But I’m afraid of what they’d throw back at me. Probably half the opportunity. Probably a lesser fortune.
I’m quick to take a mostly unknown alleyway between two buildings. It’s how I used to cut my commute time down to the labs. Unfortunately, it will also spit me out into the middle of the plaza, but from there I’ll take another shortcut that runs along the main roads. I’ll be back to Zack’s house in minutes. Hopefully the extra time will give me a chance to firm up the plans and be ready for our pow-wow.
As I near the end of the alley three things catch my attention at once: a lifeless, once familiar face, a line of yellow tape, and a poster. The face hustles by almost too fast, but I recognize it as the young boy who always flirted with Nona. Scott. He had been a Defect. I couldn’t accurately say what he is now. His face registers zero emotions. His lifeless eyes are an instrument for seeing, but not for anything else. There’s a coldness to him, like the place that radiated his emotions has been cut out. He’s the one Nona said elected to be converted early. He’s now a Middling, but he isn’t, because they feel. Scott appears too robotic to be classified in the human species. He marches down the sidewalk and disappears into a building.
Then my eyes swivel to the glossy yellow tape which serves as a barrier around the television station. Reverians regard it with a quiet interest as they pass, careful not to pay it too much attention since it’s not relevant to their business. Curiosity is considered a fault in judgment. A sin of sorts. If that’s correct then I’m damned. My eyes run over the destruction of the charred antenna, which still stands, but the lights that always blinked on top are out. The fiberglass casing is burned, leaving a large black hole in one of the nodules. And the dishes on the side of the structure are scorched. Antennas are built to withstand lightning, but this one doesn’t appear to have managed the assault of my electricity well at all. Maybe it was my proximity. Or maybe it was the combination of the rain and the amount of power I had stored. I’m definitely no expert on this. However, I know without a doubt the broadcast antenna isn’t functioning as it should.
Finally my eyes snap onto the large poster covering the brick wall in front of me. It’s on the side of the corner bakery, and the poster, which is the size of a van, changes every month. But now seeing it, knowing what I know, I realize what lies beneath the image of the baker holding a loaf of steaming hot bread. My eyes see something and then they don’t. I can’t tell what the image under the other one is. Stereograms don’t work on me, I know that. And I also know that there’s something else to the image I see plastered on the brick of the corner bakery. Something that’s supposed to compete with the messages in my head. Something that’s supposed to erase them. And the more I squint my eyes and try to find the message, the quicker it hops away, like a white rabbit encouraging me to follow. My feet carry me farther as my eyes try and fail to decipher the deception of the poster.
And then, when the sunlight pierces my retinas, I realize that my attention has been distracted for too long. I’ve walked straight out of the alleyway, not vigilant of my surroundings. I’ve made a fatal error. And I know it too late.
“Eww, Father, look, it’s her,” Dee’s too-recognizable voice squeals beside me.
My eyes flick to Dee, standing, wrapped in a knee-length camel hair coat, her arm tucked neatly around our father’s. He straightens as his eyes narrow on me. Maybe it’s the glare of the sunlight, but his gaze seems to take a moment to focus, the scowl that runs across his features delayed. I’m partially cast in the dark shadows of the alley, although on my way out. I should turn and run now, but staring at his sinister expression makes my blood turn to concrete. My father looks as he always has. Thin, but hea
lthy. Unmarked by wrinkles, only the cost of experience marking his blue eyes with maturity. His blond hair is slicked back and too short to curl like mine, but his hair is mine and we share more than that. We share a strange perversion for facing each other when I know we both would rather not.
“Em, how long have you been stalking us from the shadows?” he asks, his chin rising up high, although his eyes cast down searching me from the dark where I stand.
I pull my beanie down low and regard him with a quiet animosity. Dee, beside him, looks pleased, a spiteful grin turning up the corners of her red lips. For the love of the gods, she’s even more repulsive now, I hear her think, having leeched my father’s telepathy immediately. Why Zack ever wasted his time with her, I’ll never know. He’s such an idiot, that’s probably why. He’s a pliable idiot though, and that’s fine by me.
“Em,” my father says, stepping forward, away from Dee. A smile that chills my core flashes across his face. He looks both giddy to find me and also hungry for revenge. He extends a leather-gloved hand. “Won’t you come with me? We’ve missed you and have so many things to catch up on,” he says, his voice flat, lacking any sentiment.
It’s too early. He’s on his way to work. He hasn’t found the statue or met with Vider. But my father doesn’t seem flustered to see me here.
I slap his hand away and stand back as he reaches to grip for my wrist. Dee gasps from the exchange, like I’ve done something of great offense.
“Oh, I see you’re still mad about what happened in the labs,” my father says, staring down at me, a too-cool smile on his face.
“Do you mean when you tried to have me converted into a Middling, thereby stripping me of the rights given to me by the gods to dream travel? Or are you referring to when you said you didn’t care if I died?” I say, stepping up close to his face. “No, I’m not still mad about that or the fact that you were indifferent to the threats Vider made to me.”
You think you’re going to win this one, he thinks, his breath hot, but steady.
I know I will.
Where have you been, Em?
“Why should it matter to you?” I say aloud. An alarmed expression jumps to Dee’s face.
“I’m curious,” he says.
Well, hopefully it will kill you. Curiosity is a dirty thing, remember?
“That’s not nice to say to your father,” he says, his voice full of superficial warmth.
“You told me something was wrong with me!” I yell, but the people on the streets are quick to direct their attention to the pavement under their feet. The moment my voice catches their ears they turn away, afraid of their own interests. “You ordered me to have painful injections to fix me. Called me a shame to my family, but I wasn’t. It’s the injections that suppressed my gift. And you did this all because I have the ability to resi—”
“STOP!” my father booms so loudly that some people do pause, but soon resume their commutes to work or school. They hear our words, our argument, and yet they don’t allow it more than an ounce of their uninvited attention. Having this argument right here in the busy plaza makes me realize how impossible my mission is. If I can’t make them see the conspiracies of our society now, how will I ever?
“Father,” Dee says, her voice a wail, like that of an annoying cat’s. “What is she talking about?”
“Maybe you should go along to work alone, Dee,” my father says, his eyes boring into mine, his presence pressing against me with two steady steps. I stumble back from him, creeping deeper into the dark alley.
“She doesn’t know?” I say in disbelief. “Why not? Someone as soulless as Dee would endorse your gross plan for domination, don’t you think?’
“Don’t delude yourself into thinking you know what we have planned,” my father says, a stubborn dominance on his features.
“How dare you call me soulless,” Dee says, not leaving, but rather stepping in closer, taking the position at our father’s shoulder.
“You’re a demon that the gods tried to stamp out,” I say to her. “But you somehow scurried away from them. It’s probably because in your real form you have six scratchy legs and will be the last to survive an apocalypse, exactly like all roaches.” I wink at her.
A sound halfway between a growl and hiss springs from her thin lips. And because I know her so well and have been on the receiving end of her abuse all my life, I spy the telegraphing of her arm before it rises. I dart my palm straight in front of me as the fire sprays out of her hand. I thrust the small amount of energy I have from leeching my father out as a bolt of electricity. It meets the fire, seems to wrestle with it for a split second, to compete. I slide to the right as my attack is overpowered and bolts through the air swallowed by my sister’s fire.
She raises an overly manicured eyebrow at me. “Electricity?” she snaps with disgust, shaking her head, her red ponytail swaying with the movement. “That’s your gift? How ridiculous. It’s like the stupid stepchild to fire.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking at my father. “I’m such a freaking failure. Just ask Dad about that, he’ll fill you in on how I failed him in our last meeting.”
You don’t have to patronize me, Em.
Don’t I? You haven’t told my sister that I’m a leech? You haven’t told her that you have plans for destroying half a generation of children? Why do you keep so many secrets? Is it because she can’t be trusted or is it because you know your plans are dishonest and evil? I say to him telepathically.
She wouldn’t care. She’d go along with anything I asked, he says in his mind.
Because as I mentioned before your daughter is a psychopath, I say back silently.
He grimaces at these words. That’s enough, Em. Tell me what you’re doing here.
“No,” I say out loud to a quiet alleyway. Dee’s eyes flick to mine, a strange curiosity in them.
What’s her problem? She’s really lost it this time, my sister thinks. Such a sad soul the gods misinterpreted into Dream Traveler form.
“Oh, is that right, Dee?” I say, turning to face her. Her mouth squeezes together and her pinched nose wrinkles. Dee is taller than me. Skinnier. And has always walked with an undeserved self-entitlement. “Is that what you think? That I’m a sad soul? Some mistake?”
“What?” she stutters. It’s a clumsy thing for her to do. Something she’ll punish herself for later. “Where did you get that?” And her gaze darts to our father.
Stop, Em, he warns in my head. His blue eyes tight with impatience.
What? You don’t want me to tell your prized daughter that I’m not the screw-up you’d have her think? I say telepathically.
She should know no more than she does, my father says in my head.
You don’t want her to know that you’ve made the illusion that I’m a shame to my family? I communicate over the telepathic link.
You are a shame to the Fuller name. Never delude yourself to think less.
I pull my shoulders back and as I do, I fill my lungs with an encouraging breath. Well, I think you should consider me completely deluded at this point. Because I know I am no shame. I know with the certainty of the gods that I’m more powerful than you and Dee and everyone in the Fuller family combined. And I also know that you’re afraid of me. Isn’t that right, Father? I say the words so loud in my head that I spy the flinch register on his tight face.
Dee’s gaze keeps shifting between my father’s and mine. We’re silently pinned on each other, but I notice her concerned eyes as they watch our staring contest. And I relish that she thinks we’re staring at each other with only contempt, ignorant to the fact that we’re also exchanging words full of disdain.
“All I know for certain is you’re a mistake,” my father finally says. Each word spoken deliberately, individually, like an ingredient in a potion. And then he pauses and regards me with irrefutable contempt. “The worst one I ever made.”
“You are a mistake, Em,” Dee says, her voice sounding amused suddenly.
“I a
m not,” I say through clenched teeth.
You are, my father thinks, the corners of his mouth turning up with amusement as he spies my frustration erupt.
Make right on what you’ve done to me, I say in my mind to my father. Tell Dee the truth. I want to hear the words come out of your mouth. I want to hear you tell her that I’m not a Defect.
He nods at once, a too pleasing look on his face. “Dee, your sister,” my father says and pauses, his mouth holding a semblance of a smile. “She isn’t well. You should really back up, go away and let me take it from here”
“But Father, I don’t want you to get hurt, let me help” Dee says.
You can’t do it? I think to him. You can’t acknowledge me for who I am?
You’re a mistake, Em. Yes, powerful, but that power was put behind the wrong mind.
“You mean one that can’t be controlled,” I say out loud, earning another speculative glance from Dee.
That’s exactly what I mean. In your current state, you’re worthless to me, my father thinks and then shakes his head, a look of discriminating repulsion on his smooth features. Actually, you’re not even worthless, you’re a pest. One I’ll ensure doesn’t ruin the work we’ve done for this great nation.
You’re as misguided as the sick President. Too bad he’s about to go down in a sheet of flames.
Dee steps forward, interrupting the conversation she has no idea is going on without her. Her hands are pinned on her narrow hips. “Father has been kind enough to offer you the solution of being converted to a Middling, since your Defect status is completely unacceptable. And if you don’t take his solution willingly then I’m happy to offer you the encouragement you need.” She steps a foot in front of our father, gives a sideways smirk at him, and then holds up her hand, pointing it straight at my heart. Immediate terror surges up my spine. My eyes widen with disbelief. Dee has never shot fire at me directly, rather to the side or at my clothes. And she’s never looked more resolute than she does right now.
“Dee…” our father says, a warning in his voice. “Step away from Em.”
