by Tahereh Mafi
Kent’s eyes go wide. “It’s too soon for that, man. That shit is still not funny.”
I look away as I say, “I wasn’t making a joke.”
I can feel Kent looking at me, studying me, trying, I assume, to make some sense of me or my words. Perhaps both. But it’s hard to know what he’s thinking. It’s frustrating to have a supernatural ability that allows me to know everyone’s emotions, except for his. It makes me feel off-kilter around him. Like I’ve lost my eyesight.
Finally, Kent sighs.
I seem to have passed a test.
“Anyway,” he says, but he sounds a bit uncertain now, “I was pretty sure you would come after me. And all I could think was that if I died, James would die. I’m his whole world, you know? You kill me, you kill him.” He looks into his hands. “I stopped sleeping at night. Stopped eating. I was losing my mind. I couldn’t handle it, any of it—and you were, like, living with us? And then everything with Juliette—I just—I don’t know.” He sighs, long and loud. Shaky. “I was an asshole. I took everything out on her. Blamed her for everything. For walking away from what I thought was one of the few sure things in my life. It’s my own fault, really. My own baggage. I’ve still got a lot of shit to work out,” he says finally. “I’ve got issues with people leaving me behind.”
For a moment, I’m rendered speechless.
I’d never thought of Kent as capable of complex thought. My ability to sense emotions and his ability to extinguish preternatural gifts has made for a strange pairing—I’d always been forced to conclude that he was devoid of all thought and feeling. It turns out he’s quite a bit more emotionally adept than I’d expected. Vocal, too.
But it’s strange to see someone with my shared DNA speak so freely. To admit aloud his fears and shortcomings. It’s too raw, like looking directly at the sun. I have to look away.
Ultimately, I say only, “I understand.”
Kent clears his throat.
“So. Yeah,” he says. “I guess I just wanted to say that Juliette was right. In the end, she and I grew apart. All of this”—he makes a gesture between us—“made me realize a lot of things. And she was right. I’ve always been so desperate for something, some kind of love, or affection, or something. I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “I guess I wanted to believe she and I had something we didn’t. I was in a different place then. Hell, I was a different person. But I know my priorities now.”
I look at him then, a question in my eyes.
“My family,” he says, meeting my gaze. “That’s all I care about now.”
JULIETTE
We’re making our way slowly back to base.
I’m in no hurry to find Warner only to have what will probably be a difficult, stressful conversation, so I take my time. I pick my way through the detritus of war, winding through the gray wreckage of the compounds as we leave behind unregulated territory and the smudged remnants of what used to be. I’m always sorry when our walk is nearly at an end; I feel great nostalgia for the cookie-cutter homes, the picket fences, the small, boarded-up shops and old, abandoned banks and buildings that make up the streets of unregulated turf. I’d like to find a way to bring it all back again.
I take a deep breath and enjoy the rush of crisp, icy air as it burns through my lungs. Wind wraps around me, pulling and pushing and dancing, whipping my hair into a frenzy, and I lean into it, get lost in it, open my mouth to inhale it. I’m about to smile when Kenji shoots me a dark look and I cringe, apologizing with my eyes.
My halfhearted apology does little to placate him.
I forced Kenji to take another detour down to the ocean, which is often my favorite part of our walk. Kenji, on the other hand, really hates it—and so do his boots, one of which got stuck in the muck that now clings to what used to be clean sand.
“I still can’t believe you like staring at that nasty, piss-infested—”
“It’s not infested, exactly,” I point out. “Castle says it’s definitely more water than pee.”
Kenji only glares at me.
He’s still muttering under his breath, complaining about his shoes being soaked in “piss water,” as he likes to call it, as we make our way up the main road. I’m happy to ignore him, determined to enjoy the last of this peaceful hour, as it’s one of the only hours I have for myself these days. I linger and look back at the cracked sidewalks and caving roofs of our old world, trying—and occasionally succeeding—to remember a time when things weren’t so bleak.
“Do you ever miss it?” I ask Kenji. “The way things used to be?”
Kenji is standing on one foot, shaking some kind of sludge from one leather boot, when he looks up and frowns. “I don’t know what you think you remember, J, but the way things used to be wasn’t much better than the way they are now.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, leaning against the pole of an old street sign.
“What do you mean?” he counters. “How can you miss anything about your old life? I thought you hated your life with your parents. I thought you said they were horrible and abusive.”
“They were,” I say, turning away. “And we didn’t have much. But there were some things I like to remember—some nice moments—back before The Reestablishment was in power. I guess I just miss the small things that used to make me happy.” I look back at him and smile. “You know?”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Like—the sound of the ice cream truck in the afternoons,” I say to him. “Or the mailman making his rounds. I used to sit by the window and watch people come home from work in the evenings.” I look away, remembering. “It was nice.”
“Hm.”
“You don’t think so?”
Kenji’s lips quirk up into an unhappy smile as he inspects his boot, now free of sludge. “I don’t know, kid. Those ice cream trucks never came into my neighborhood. The world I remember was tired and racist and volatile as hell, ripe for a hostile takeover by a shit regime. We were already divided. The conquering was easy.” He takes a deep breath. Blows it out as he says, “Anyway, I ran away from an orphanage when I was eight, so I don’t remember much of that cutesy shit, regardless.”
I freeze, stunned. It takes me a second to find my voice. “You lived in an orphanage?”
Kenji nods before offering me a short, humorless laugh. “Yep. I’d been living on the streets for a year, hitchhiking my way across the state—you know, before we had sectors—until Castle found me.”
“What?” My body goes rigid. “Why have you never told me this story? All this time—and you never said—”
He shrugs.
“Did you ever know your parents?”
He nods but doesn’t look at me.
I feel my blood run cold. “What happened to them?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” I say, and touch his elbow. “Kenji—”
“It’s not important,” he says, breaking away. “We’ve all got problems. We’ve all got baggage. No need to dwell on it.”
“This isn’t about dwelling on the past,” I say. “I just want to know. Your life—your past—it matters to me.” And for a moment I’m reminded again of Castle—his eyes, his urgency—and his insistence that there’s more I need to know about Warner’s past, too.
There’s so much left to learn about the people I care about.
Kenji finally smiles, but it makes him look tired. Eventually, he sighs. He jogs up a few cracked steps leading to the entrance of an old library and sits down on the cold concrete. Our armed guards are waiting for us, just out of sight.
Kenji pats the place next to him.
I scramble up the steps to join him.
We’re staring out at an ancient intersection, old stoplights and electric lines smashed and tangled on the pavement, when he says,
“So, you know I’m Japanese, right?”
I nod.
“Well. Where I grew up, people weren’t used to seeing faces like mine. My parents
weren’t born here; they spoke Japanese and broken English. Some people didn’t like that. Anyway, we lived in a rough area,” he explains, “with a lot of ignorant people. And just before The Reestablishment started campaigning, promising to solve all our people problems by obliterating cultures and languages and religions and whatever, race relations were at their worst. There was a lot of violence, all across the continent. Communities clashing. Killing each other. If you were the wrong color at the wrong time”—he makes a finger gun, shoots it into the air—“people would make you disappear. We avoided it, mostly. The Asian communities never had it as bad as the black communities, for example. The black communities had it the worst—Castle can tell you all about that,” he says. “Castle’s got the craziest stories. But the worst that ever happened to my family, usually, was people would talk shit when we were out together. I remember my mom never wanted to leave the house.”
I feel my body tense.
“Anyhow.” He shrugs. “My dad just—you know—he couldn’t just stand there and let people say stupid, foul shit about his family, right? So he’d get mad. It wasn’t like this was always happening or whatever—but when it did happen, sometimes the altercation would end in an argument, and sometimes nothing. It didn’t seem like the end of the world. But my mom was always begging my dad to let it go, and he couldn’t.” His face darkens. “And I don’t blame him.
“One day,” Kenji says, “it ended really badly. Everyone had guns in those days, remember? Civilians had guns. Crazy to imagine now, under The Reestablishment, but back then, everyone was armed, out for themselves.” A short pause. “My dad bought a gun, too. He said we needed it, just in case. For our own protection.” Kenji isn’t looking at me when he says, “And the next time some stupid shit went down, my dad got a little too brave. They used his own gun against him. Dad got shot. Mom got shot trying to make it stop. I was seven.”
“You were there?” I gasp.
He nods. “Saw the whole thing go down.”
I cover my mouth with both hands. My eyes sting with unshed tears.
“I’ve never told anyone that story,” he says, his forehead creasing. “Not even Castle.”
“What?” I drop my hands. My eyes widen. “Why not?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says quietly, and stares off into the distance. “When I met Castle everything was still so fresh, you know? Still too real. When he wanted to know my story, I told him I didn’t want to talk about it. Ever.” Kenji glances over at me. “Eventually, he just stopped asking.”
I can only stare at him, stunned. Speechless.
Kenji looks away. He’s almost talking to himself when he says, “It feels so weird to have said all of that out loud.” He takes a sudden, sharp breath, jumps to his feet, and turns his head so I can’t see his face. I hear him sniff hard, twice. And then he stuffs his hands in his pockets and says, “You know, I think I might be the only one of us who doesn’t have daddy issues. I loved the shit out of my dad.”
I’m still thinking about Kenji’s story—and how much more there is to know about him, about Warner, about everyone I’ve come to call a friend—when Winston’s voice startles me back to the present.
“We’re still figuring out exactly how to divvy up the rooms,” he’s saying, “but it’s coming together nicely. In fact, we’re a little ahead of schedule on the bedrooms,” he says. “Warner fast-tracked the work on the east wing, so we can actually start moving in tomorrow.”
There’s a brief round of applause. Someone cheers.
We’re taking a brief tour of our new headquarters.
The majority of the space is still under construction, so, for the most part, what we’re staring at is a loud, dusty mess, but I’m excited to see the progress. Our group has desperately needed more bedrooms, more bathrooms, desks and studios. And we need to set up a real command center from which we can get work done. This will, hopefully, be the beginning of that new world. The world wherein I’m the supreme commander.
Crazy.
For now, the details of what I do and control are still unfolding. We won’t be challenging other sectors or their leaders until we have a better idea of who our allies might be, and that means we’ll need a little more time. “The destruction of the world didn’t happen overnight, and neither will saving it,” Castle likes to say, and I think he’s right. We need to make thoughtful decisions as we move forward—and making an effort to be diplomatic might be the difference between life and death. It would be far easier to make global progress, for example, if we weren’t the only ones with the vision for change.
We need to forge alliances.
But Castle’s conversation with me this morning has left me a little rattled. I’m not sure how to feel anymore—or what to hope for. I only know that, despite the brave face I put on for the civilians, I don’t want to jump from one war to another; I don’t want to have to slaughter everyone who stands in my way. The people of Sector 45 are trusting me with their loved ones—with their children and spouses who’ve become my soldiers—and I don’t want to risk any more of their lives unless absolutely necessary. I’m hoping to ease into this. I’m hoping that there’s a chance—even the smallest chance—that the semicooperation of my fellow sectors and the five other supreme commanders could mean good things for the future. I’m wondering if we might be able to come together without more bloodshed.
“That’s ridiculous. And naive,” Kenji says.
I look up at the sound of his voice, look around. He’s talking to Ian. Ian Sanchez—tall, lanky guy with a bit of an attitude but a good heart. The only one of us with no superpowers, though. Not that it matters.
Ian is standing tall, arms crossed against his chest, head turned to the side, eyes up at the ceiling. “I don’t care what you think—”
“Well, I do.” I hear Castle cut in. “I care what Kenji thinks,” he’s saying.
“But—”
“I care what you think, too, Ian,” Castle says, “But you have to see that Kenji is right in this instance. We have to approach everything with a great deal of caution. We can’t know for certain what will happen next.”
Ian sighs, exasperated. “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is I don’t understand why we need all this space. It’s unnecessary.”
“Wait—what’s the issue here?” I ask, looking around. And then, to Ian: “Why don’t you like the new space?”
Lily puts an arm around Ian’s shoulders. “Ian is just sad,” she says, smiling. “He doesn’t want to break up the slumber party.”
“What?” I frown.
Kenji laughs.
Ian scowls. “I just think we’re fine where we are,” he says. “I don’t know why we need to move up into all this,” he says, his arms wide as he scans the cavernous space. “It feels like tempting fate. Doesn’t anyone remember what happened the last time we built a huge hideout?”
I watch Castle flinch.
I think we all do.
Omega Point, destroyed. Bombed into nothingness. Decades of hard work obliterated in a moment.
“That’s not going to happen again,” I say firmly. “Besides, we’re more protected here than we ever were before. We have an entire army behind us now. We’re safer in this building than we would be anywhere else.”
My words are met with an immediate chorus of support, but still I bristle, because I know that what I’ve said is only partly true.
I have no way of knowing what’s going to happen to us or how long we’ll last here. What I do know is that we need the new space—and we need to set up shop while we still have the funds. No one has tried to cut us off or shut us down yet; no sanctions have been imposed by fellow continents or commanders. Not yet, anyway. Which means we need to rebuild while we still have the means to do so.
But this—
This enormous space dedicated only to our efforts?
This was all Warner’s doing.
He was able to empty out an entire floor for u
s—the top floor, the fifteenth story—of Sector 45 headquarters. It took an enormous amount of effort to transfer and distribute a whole floor’s worth of people, work, and furnishings to other departments, but somehow, he managed it. Now the level is being refitted specifically for our needs.
Once it’s all done we’ll have state-of-the-art technology that will allow us not only the access to the research and surveillance we’ll need, but the necessary tools for Winston and Alia to continue building any devices, gadgets, and uniforms we might require. And even though Sector 45 already has its own medical wing, we’ll need a secure area for Sonya and Sara to work, from where they’ll be able to continue developing antidotes and serums that might one day save our lives.
I’m just about to point this out when Delalieu walks into the room.
“Supreme,” he says, with a nod in my direction.
At the sound of his voice, we all spin around.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
There’s a slight quiver in his words when he says, “You have a visitor, madam. He’s requesting ten minutes of your time.”
“A visitor?” I turn instinctively, finding Kenji with my eyes. He looks just as confused as I am.
“Yes, madam,” says Delalieu. “He’s waiting downstairs in the main reception room.”
“But who is this person?” I ask, concerned. “Where did he come from?”
“His name is Haider Ibrahim. He’s the son of the supreme commander of Asia.”
I feel my body lock in sudden apprehension. I’m not sure I’m any good at hiding the panic that jolts through me as I say, “The son of the supreme commander of Asia? Did he say why he was here?”
Delalieu shakes his head. “I’m sorry to say that he refused to answer any of my more detailed questions, madam.”
I’m breathing hard, head spinning. Suddenly all I can think about is Castle’s concern over Oceania this morning. The fear in his eyes. The many questions he refused to answer.
“What shall I tell him, madam?” Delalieu again.
I feel my heart pick up. I close my eyes. You are a supreme commander, I say to myself. Act like it.
