by Sam Powers
The door swung closed behind her. The chamber was dark, the size of a small changing room or large doctor’s office, barely lit in shades of red by bare crimson bulbs. Against the back wall, a cylindrical metal tank in the shape of a pill capsule sloped forward and down to the ground, a porthole-style circle of tempered glass three quarter of the way up.
Electrical leads and wires led from the back of the tank to a control panel and computer display, the letters green-on-black, resting on an adjacent metal table.
Mr. Shou stood beside the tank. ‘Disrobe,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Have you taken your dose of the treatment?’
She nodded as she got undressed. She was glad she didn’t have to speak back. She hated speaking to them, even though Master Yip told her she was gifted.
Amy had gone through the process twice a week since her fourth birthday, seven years earlier, and her modesty in front of the grown man had long since disappeared with clinical detachment. She hated the drug, not just because of how it affected their memories, but because it upset her stomach, just like milk. But her father didn’t believe that, either, and the last time she’d tried to turn down breakfast cereal, he’d beaten her with his belt until her bones hurt.
Even the session was better than that, she reasoned, better than being in the house with him. At least… it had to be. She didn’t remember much more than Chris or anyone else. There were nightmares, but they were fleeting, abstract images that she immediately forgot when she awoke each morning.
She put her foot on the first metal step alongside the apparatus. The tank would be cold at first, then near freezing, the water and gel solution covering everything except for her nose and the attached breathing apparatus that hung suspended from the tank door. Within minutes, she would lose all sensation in her body, and the drug would kick in. After an hour, the complete absence of sensation coupled with the total blackness of the tank would cause her mind to detach from reality, being taken to the place where answers lay, the place of universal truths and divine instruction.
The next day at school had been difficult. Principal Anders’ morning sermon at assembly had been on the virtues of commitment and hard work, and he’d made a point to emphasize being timely, before staring twice at Becky with pointed disdain.
Amy made sure to keep an eye on her younger sibling through the day. After lunch, she tracked her down in the playground, where the younger children hung from the jungle gym and watched some of the boys play touch football. Becky wasn’t paying attention, alone in the crowd, a vacant look on her sad little face.
‘Don’t worry, Sis… it’s like Mr. Platt says in civics class: ‘all things pass.’
‘I don’t get it,’ the younger girl said.
‘It means you won’t feel like this forever. They’ll have forgotten by next week that you were late, so long as you don’t do it again. Do you get that?’
The girl nodded vigorously. She was only nine, and Amy knew it would be some time before she could give up the role of protector; Lord knew their father wasn’t going to do it.
Jimmy Palmer sidled up to Becky. He was nine or ten, two classes below Amy and picked on by some of the bigger boys. But he seemed nice, and was always trying to be optimistic, to make the best of living in the small town. ‘Don’t worry, Becky!’ he enthused. ‘I’ve been late twice, and I’m okay! It’s how hard you try next time that they care about.’
She glanced his way. ‘You think?’
‘I know for sure,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be okay.’
The shove landed squarely between his shoulder blades with a powerful thump. Jimmy flew forward face-first into the ground. ‘Shut up, Little Orphan Useless!’ Donny Taylor insisted.
Jimmy rolled onto his back. Donny was beefy, with red hair and freckles. He stood over the terrified smaller youth. ‘I ought to whup your little weirdo ass. What makes you so happy, huh? I ought to beat that smile off your face.’
‘Please… Donny…’ Jimmy implored, trying to skitter away on his backside.
Donny laughed at him. ‘Look at this loser. I guess that’s why your mom left your family, right Jiminy Cricket? Because she couldn’t stand living with you and your old man? What does he do again? Oh yeah: he makes computer programs. Your father is a dweeb, Jimmy, a four-star nerd.’
‘Leave him alone.’
The voice came from Donny’s right, toward the school. A handful of students were milling around watching the display, bored. Chris stood in front of them with both fists clinched.
‘Or what, Platt? I’ll whup your ass too, just as easy…’
The boys marched toward each other with homicidal purpose. They met in the middle, Donny trying to stare down the smaller student, Chris looking up at him with a gaze that suggested he intended to give as good as he got. ‘Yeah? Bring it on, fat boy,’ Chris offered.
The bell rang, a piercing clang. Both boys looked up at it simultaneously. They knew the rules about ignoring the bell and what would happen if they didn’t immediately go in for afternoon classes. They knew it wasn’t worth it. ‘We’ll fight later,’ Donny said.
‘Be there or be square,’ Chris said. His father had told him all about his war-hero grandfather, a Golden Gloves boxer before the Big One. He’d trained a little, and as big as Donny was, Chris figured he deserved a pop in the mouth. As they walked back to the main building, he made sure not to glance at the windows to see who was watching. He didn’t want to show any weakness.
After school, Amy walked home alone. Chris lived next door but was nowhere to be seen. Becky got off an hour earlier and it was just a few blocks. It was the kind of small town, people said, where kids could be safe strolling the tree-lined streets on their own. The disappearance of David Webber hadn’t changed that. People put it down to a drifter, a one-off occurrence. They weren’t going to let it change the joy of small-town living, they’d all agreed at a town hall meeting.
Their house was boxy and serious, she thought, just like the Platts’. The difference was that the Platts kept theirs in nice condition, while her father and stepmom didn’t seem to care. The dark blue paint on the Platt house was pristine and even. The white siding on the Sawyer house was sagging, the paint peeling. The lawn was a mess, her sister’s toys scattered about among the ever-lengthening blades of grass. She felt a little ashamed each time she returned. Since her mother’s death two years earlier and the introduction of her father’s girlfriend, his tempers had gotten worse, his drinking more commonplace. She knew he lied and faked his reports to the Town Elders.
But she also knew if she said anything, he’d probably kill her. Or worse, take it out on Becky. She took a deep breath to prepare herself, then opened the rickety wooden gate and walked the short paving stone pathway to the front porch and door. She pushed the door open slowly, hoping it wouldn’t squeak too loudly and attract attention. The last thing she ever wanted from her father was attention.
She could hear the television playing Dan Rather and the Evening News, something about America’s moral failings. The usual background noise. Amy crept through the kitchen to the stairs, then up the two short flights to the landing above.
The floorboards creaked and groaned under her feet and she stopped short, her breath shallow, trying to listen past it for her father. The TV droned on, a commercial for something, the newsman’s voice replaced by a higher pitch, just audible. She exhaled, then crept the last few steps to her door.
‘AMELIA!’ He bellowed it like an accusation, and a moment later Art Sawyer’s worn boots were tromping across the Kitchen and up the stairs.
Amy ran into their room and closed the door. Becky was on her bed reading but she dropped the book and her gaze filled with fear at her sister’s expression. ‘Hide!’ Amy demanded. ‘Get under your bed! Don’t argue, just do it!’
Becky scrambled to comply, the bedroom door flying open a moment after she’d disappeared into the shadowy recess.
‘WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?’ her father demanded. He began to t
ake off his belt. Unbuckling it, then sliding it through the loops in one tug, then wrapping it around his fist. ‘I won’t give you the buckle this time if you’re honest with me.’
‘I had a study session with Mrs. Carrier, our French teacher. But Daddy… I told you about it…’
His face turned red, then purple, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging in tandem with his eyes, his balding pate the same angry hue. ‘ARE YOU TALKING BACK TO ME, YOU LITTLE BITCH?!? GET OVER HERE.’
Under the bed, Becky covered her ears and shut her eyes tight. She knew it wouldn’t be enough to shut out her sister’s tortured sobbing.
It never did.
He beat her for nearly five minutes. He’d be careful, avoiding her face so that she had nothing to show the teachers or Elders. When the sound had finally subsided and Becky was sure he’d left, she uncovered her ears.
Becky wouldn’t talk to Amy about it. She knew that was a mistake. The last time, she’d cried on her sister’s shoulder only to be rebuked and slapped across the face. ‘You’re pathetic and weak,’ Amy had said. ‘You need to be made of stronger stuff if you’re going to be my sister.’
So instead, she stayed under the bed, curled up in the shadows, until Amy went to the bathroom to clean herself up. Then Becky climbed back up onto her bed and under the covers, pulling them up tight over her head and wishing it all away.
The three days until the next session were long and warm, and Chris spent most of the evenings on the hill with Amy, looking down over the school and the town. His anxiety was getting worse, and he wasn’t sure why. He knew he couldn’t talk to her about it, that she’d be compelled to turn him in as unstable.
Then, the nightmares had begun.
It was a Monday, the session two days earlier, and Chris found himself sitting alone during recess, trying to remember the latest. He’d been caught in a maze, then cornered, then fighting for his life. The faces had been unfamiliar, the dream non-linear and jumbled. But he couldn’t lose the unsettling feeling that he’d done something terrible. As the other students milled around the playground, he sat on top of the double-sided park bench with his knees up to his chest, wishing he was home in his room, alone.
‘You okay, Chris?’
Chris snapped out of it. Jimmy had his hands thrust in his shorts pockets. He had pale blue t-shirt on that said ‘Detroit Dodgers’ in florid white-and-red text. ‘Yeah… I mean, yes. Yes, I’m fine.’ Then he scowled at the younger boy. ‘It’s not healthy to worry so much about others.’
‘I know,’ Jimmy said glumly. ‘I guess I’m in my own head too much. That’s what they tell me at Session. They get pretty mad with me.’
Another reason to stay away from him, Chris thought. Then he caught himself, a feeling of guilt settling into the pit of his stomach. ‘Yeah… I guess that’s kind of tough, right?’ Then he stopped, frowning.
Jimmy turned to see what had caught Chris’ attention. Donny Taylor was striding their way, looking as angry as ever.
‘Hi…. Ah, hi, Don,’ Jimmy stammered, attempting to defuse anything before it occurred.
The bully was having none of it. ‘Did I say you could talk, pipsqueak!?’ he spat. Then he punched the smaller boy in the shoulder. ‘Sad little Jiminy Cricket…’
Chris jumped down from the table. ‘You leave him alone, Donny. I warned you already.’
‘Yeah?’ Donny countered. He leaned in, a good four or five inches taller than his classmate. ‘You sure talk a good game… faggot.’
Donny reached to push him, but Chris was expecting it. The bully did the same thing every time, using his bulk to force other kids down. He grabbed Donny by the lapels, falling backwards, letting his own weight and Donny’s momentum take them both down, reaching up in mid fall to boot the bigger boy in the stomach. His foot acted like a tiny catapult, hurling the boy over his head. Donny slammed to the ground back-first.
Both boys struggled to their feet, Chris winning the race. From the corner of his eye he could see two of the instructors on the edge of the playground. They were nodding and gesturing his way. It was the throw, it had to be. Chris smiled. His judo practice had paid off and he’d found favor.
Donny wiped some blood from a skinned elbow. ‘You can use all those wimp judo throws all you want, queerbo, but I’m still going to…’
Before he could finish the sentence, Chris stepped forward two paces and threw a left jab, catching Donny square. His nose snapped, then blood began to stream out. The bigger boy’s eyes teared up completely and he tried to stop the blood flow with both hands. He looked around in a hazed panic, then ran toward the blurry school building, unaware of the critical onlookers. Donny hadn’t gone eight feet when Jimmy stuck his foot out; the bigger boy still couldn’t see and he tripped head on, his chin smashing into the playground asphalt, teeth breaking and coming loose.
There was a pause as the murmured shock of the moment rippled around the crowd like a slow-building avalanche. From the bench at the back of the yard, Chris saw the bigger boy raise both hands up to chest height, pushing up off the ground until he was on his knees. Then he pulled his t-shirt up to his mouth to wipe away the blood and broken teeth, before turning his head slowly to look back at Jimmy with an expression of abject rage.
He was interrupted by the whistle, a two-tone blast loud enough to carry for miles. Everyone turned to the source. Principal Anders and Mister Yip, the physical education instructor, had been taking notes on clipboard paper.
‘Mr. Taylor, you shall refrain from retaliation,’ Principal Anders said. ‘Your performance today has been most disappointing already. We don’t wish to compound it, now, do we?’
Donny looked madder than anyone Chris had ever seen, madder even than Davy Webber’s father the night he disappeared. He stormed off toward the schoolhouse with his hands still balled in fists.
‘Mr. Platt,’ the Principal said. ‘A commendable job of defending yourself. Mr. Palmer, once again you require someone else to fight your battles for you. We are nothing, Mr. Palmer, if not demanding of independent problem solving. This sort of continued dependency on those stronger and cleverer than you shall not be tolerated any longer. Am I making myself absolutely and entirely crystal clear, Mr. Palmer?’
Jimmy looked like he might cry, but he bit his tongue and distracted himself enough to hold back the tears. ‘Yes… yes, sir.’ He said. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Don’t thank me, Mr. Palmer,’ the principal admonished. ‘Thank Mr. Platt. Mr. Platt, though I congratulate your skills at self-defense, I cannot help but think that this is the second time in three weeks you’ve stepped in to save someone weaker. Let’s hope there is not a third. I foresee big things in your future, Mr. Platt. Don’t prove me overoptimistic.’
‘Christopher, you haven’t touched your peas.’
The comment didn’t really register. Chris had his elbow on the table and his fork suspended as he daydreamed, committing at least three cardinal sins in the Platt household. ‘Huh..? Sorry, what?’
‘You need to go to bed earlier if you’re this tired this early,’ his mother said. ‘I said you haven’t touched your peas, little man. You finish those all up. There are kids in India who would literally kill their own parents if they had to for those peas.’
His father had been circumspect about his dazed behavior all night. Finally, he asked, ‘Son, is there something in particular bothering you, something you’d like to share with us?’
‘I…’ He looked up at their expectant, supportive faces. ‘Aw, heck… it’s nothing.’
‘Is it about the fight today?’ his father asked. ‘I heard you beat up the Taylor kid pretty good.’
‘Yeah…’
‘So you should be proud of yourself,’ his father said. ‘You stood up to a bully and acquitted yourself well.’
‘They didn’t like that I was defending Jimmy Palmer.’
His mother dabbed at her mouth politely with her napkin, then placed it beside her plate. ‘Well, son, when someone
makes a judgment like that, you know what you do? You make sure and you learn from it. Because Jimmy is weak. And when we coddle the weak…? What do we say?’
‘We carry the weight,” Chris repeated. “I know, Ma, I know…’
‘And you don’t want to be a weakling, do you? Now, we all know that it’s true, and that he’s not someone you want to hitch your wagon to, so to speak, at least not unless you’re told to do so. The work is just too important for you to be dragged down with him. You hear me?’
He looked anxiously at his father, the school’s teacher of the year – as voted by the students – for three years running. His father grasped the boy’s smaller hand in his own, like a preacher leading a prayer. ‘You listen to your mother, son,’ he said. ‘The next time something like that happens, you help them beat that boy’s head in. You hear me?’
If his parents said it, Chris knew, it had to be so. Every kid in Plenty knew that rule. ‘I did tag Donny pretty good though,’ he said, eager to regain their favor.
His father grinned, then mussed the boy’s hair playfully. ‘You sure did, son. You sure did.’
But the next day was no better.
Despite his parents’ assurances, Chris had woken feeling glum and not looking forward to anything. That wasn’t abnormal during the school term; but it was worse on this day, a gnawing sensation that he was not heading in the right direction, that all the advice was wrong. That his own parents did not have the best of intentions.
It was unsettling. He’d remained distracted through classes. At lunch, Principal Anders had stopped at his regular table to ask if he was okay. Then the principal had congratulated Becky for getting to school early, leaving the little girl beaming.
