Chapter 8 – The Stayers
Vincent blinked, slowly at first – his eyelids felt sticky against his Lenses – then more quickly until his vision returned. He reached his arms up automatically to stretch. Midway through the motion he froze, preparing himself for the wave of pain the movement would surely have triggered, but he felt nothing. Frowning, suspicious of his own body, he completed the stretch as a test, once again braced against the inevitable wave. Still, nothing. That was impossible. If he had tried the same motion in the transport, his eyes would have gone white with agony. In the bed on which he lay now, however, he felt nothing at all.
The room’s only door swung inward. Vincent shrank back against the pillow behind him.
“Hello, Vincent.”
It was a woman who stepped through the opening. She had a squat, sturdy frame and hands just a bit too large. The skin of her face seemed to be on the verge of wrinkling, and her eyes were partially covered by drooping eyelids.
Vincent shifted toward the wall when the woman crossed over to his bed. When he moved, he felt something tug at his arm. Tracing the pressure down to his wrist, he saw the tube there, protruding from a small hole in his skin. He looked away, suppressing the urge to be sick. “Where am I?” he asked. “Where’s Jessica?”
“She’s in the next room,” the woman said back.
“How did we get here?” asked Vincent.
“In that odd looking car,” said the woman. “Jack spotted you when you came racing in. You nearly hit him.”
“Jack?”
“My husband.”
Vincent nodded, though he was far from understanding.
From the bag over her shoulder, the woman removed a thin book with a slender, pointed stick – like the ones from the office in Brian’s dome – clipped onto the binding. She flipped to the closest page that wasn’t scrawled with sloppy markings and pressed the stick down onto it. It left more of the same markings as the previous pages behind it as it went.
Vincent looked up once again. He turned to the room’s only window, but he could see nothing but wisps of white, vaporous clouds and the open sky behind them. He turned to the door, which had been left ajar. He could see a hallway beyond, but nothing further.
“Where’s Jessica?” he repeated.
“Jack is taking care of her,” said the woman, patiently. “She refused any treatment until she was convinced you would be ok.” The woman made one final scribble with the utensil in her hand, then plunged the book back into her bag. She stood upright. “Let me check a few things.” She made as if to lean closer to him, but Vincent recoiled.
“It’s ok, Vincent,” said the woman. “You’re safe.” She leaned toward him again. Vincent stretched further away.
“How do you know my name?” he said.
“Jessica told us.”
“And where are we?”
“Washing,” said the woman. Then, seeing Vincent’s confused look, added: “A city.”
Vincent looked out the window yet again, hoping perhaps the expanse of blue had been filled instead with dark paned towers and huge, story-height screens. He saw only clouds.
“Who are you?” he asked, turning back to the woman.
“Abigail,” she said, as if that answered the question. “Now stay still.”
Without waiting for permission, the woman leaned closer to him and inserted a funneled device into his ear. She hunched over to peer through it.
“Other side.”
She pulled his left arm so he rolled onto his side, and she repeated the procedure in his other ear.
“What are you doing?” asked Vincent.
“Now on your back.” Abigail prodded him, gently, to resume his previous position. When he did, she took hold of his wrist – the one without the tube protruding from it – and pressed down on the largest vein there. She counted something under her breath. “Good,” she said, then released his wrist. “Now for your eyes.”
She leaned over him, and Vincent backed away once again. “It’s ok,” she said. “I just want to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
Relenting, but keeping his muscles tense and his eyes on the open door opposite the window, Vincent stayed still. Abigail leaned forward so their faces were only centimeters apart, and she peered once again through the funneled device she had inserted into his ears.
“They look different than I remember,” she said. Vincent could feel the wind of her words against his cheeks.
“My eyes?” said Vincent.
“Your Lenses,” said Abigail. “Is this how they all look now?”
Vincent frowned as Abigail switched her inspection to his other eye. “What do you mean? Mine are just the same as yours.”
Abigail leaned backward so her torso no longer hovered over him. She slipped the peering device into the side pocket of her white, smock-like coat. “I don’t wear Lenses,” she said. “No one in Washing does.”
“What do you mean you don’t wear Lenses?” said Vincent. “You have to.”
Abigail leaned forward once again. This time, though, she was the one with her eyes opened wide. “Not here,” she said.
Suspicious, Vincent squinted to inspect the white area just beyond the grayish blue of her irises. There was no trace of the usual thin line, the betraying curved rim. Her eyes were bare, free.
“But…” Vincent struggled to form words. He felt guilty, for some reason, talking to someone who wasn’t wearing Lenses. “How do you engage your simulations and–”
Vincent’s free hand shot up to his front pocket. He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a small, hard circle tucked away inside. Whoever this woman was, she hadn’t touched THE SIM.
“Pardon?” said Abigail. She glanced down at Vincent’s pocket.
“Engaging simulations,” said Vincent, lowering his hand. “And sending messages. Accessing the network. Do you not do any of that?”
Abigail smiled once again. “I’ve heard those questions before,” she said. There was a far off, nostalgic quality to her tone. There was pain there, too. “You’re from a Seclusion, aren’t you?”
Vincent nodded. He was starting to feel less and less of a need to shrink away from the woman.
“We don’t watch simulations,” she said. “Unlike the other cities. And we don’t send messages; we carry them ourselves.” She glanced out the window, a haze over her gray-blue eyes. “As for the network, I haven’t been connected to that for years. The Lenses are the only devices capable of connecting. And other Newsight products, of course.”
“But my mother said the cities were being shipped new Lenses,” said Vincent. “Why don’t you use those?”
Abigail shook her head. “We never received them. Only the people who migrated received the upgrade. Those who stayed, like my husband and I, did not.”
“Why would you have to go somewhere else to wear Lenses?” asked Vincent. He thought back to the management sector in the Seclusion. “Is the whole city off the network?”
Abigail squinted, tilting her head in thought. “I suppose you could say that. It was our choice, one not many other cities shared.”
“You mean you could choose?” pressed Vincent. “Whether or not to wear Lenses?”
“Whether or not to make them standard,” corrected Abigail, “so that everyone would wear them. In the end, we abstained. There were too many protests to do anything but.” Abigail's eyes glazed over once again as yet more memories tugged at her mind. Vincent changed the subject to pull her back.
“Where were you and your husband going when you saw us?” he asked. “Were you leaving?”
“Of course not,” said Abigail. The focus had returned to her eyes. Her voice was firm. “We were getting supplies. Stocking up for the Order attack.”
“So,” started Vincent, “you’re not from the Order?”
Abigail looked appalled. “I most certainly am not,” she said. “I’m no terrorist.”
Vincent sighed. It had been a ludicrous hope.
“Speaking of the Order,” said Abigail. “The attack will be soon. We need to hurry back.”
“Back where?”
“The Hole.”
Vincent frowned. He looked at Abigail, then out the window. An entire city that didn’t wear Lenses – it was a compelling thought. The place called The Hole, however, was less compelling.
“You don’t have to come with us, of course,” said Abigail. “But you should. If you want any chance of surviving the attack.”
“How do you know there’s going to be an attack?” said Vincent.
“We know,” said Abigail. She seemed to think the answer was sufficient. “Now how do you feel?”
At first, Vincent made no response. He had no reason to mistrust the woman – more reason, conversely, to thank her – but he remained far from comfortable. Still, after a pause, and keeping his distance, he sat up in the bed and twisted his back as a test. The shooting, needling pain that had consumed him inside the overturned transport was completely absent. “A lot better,” he said, surprised. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do much of anything,” said Abigail. “It was the injections that did most of it.”
Vincent frowned. Newsight’s medical injections were the saving grace of the Seclusion. Here, however, he hadn’t expected them to be used.
“They’re usually saved for the Newsight cities,” said Abigail, “but we managed to get our hands on some before they got to be exclusive.”
Vincent opened his mouth, but the dozen questions there seemed to dam the flow of his words. He stayed silent.
“Let me take this out for you,” said Abigail. Before Vincent could ask what she was talking about, she removed something slender and sharp from his wrist with a flourish. He winced. “All set.” She patted the skin of his arm where the needle had just been. “Can you walk?”
Vincent wasn’t sure of the answer. He swiveled under the sheets so his legs swung over the edge of the mattress. He stood and took a step forward. His legs wobbled at first from weakness, but they grew steady after another step. “I’m fine,” he said.
Abigail nodded, patting him again. “Then come with me.” She turned from him and started, rather slowly so he could keep up, for the door. “Your friend is in the next room.”
Energized by the thought of seeing Jessica, Vincent forced himself to quicken his walk. Moments later they were in the hallway, a long, dim stretch of empty floor. On either side of them every few meters, doors lined the walls – walls, Vincent noticed, that were completely straight, blocked at the corners with right angles unlike the usual curves of the Seclusion.
“Right here.”
Abigail came to a door on the other side of the hall and opened without knocking. Jessica was lying on a bed exactly like Vincent’s, in a room almost exactly like the one they had just left. This room’s window, however, had a view far different than the last. The sky was the same pale blue, hazed in spots by the translucent wisps of clouds, but it was parted down the middle by dark outlines of distant towers. They joined together to form a single, castle-like unit, shining from the sun’s reflection in their tall, dark-paned walls of glass.
A stout, rough-looking man with close-cropped dark hair was knelt over Jessica’s bed, talking to her as he checked the machine at her side. When he saw them, he nodded in their direction. Jessica followed his gaze.
“Vincent?” said Jessica. “You’re walking!”
“And well, too,” said Abigail. She smiled at Vincent, then turned to her husband. “Jack, I think we’re ready.”
Jack stood from his position next to the machine. “Good,” he said. “This one has been trying to get out of bed ever since she woke up.”
“I told you I feel fine,” said Jessica. She held out her arm, the one still attached to the tube, expectant. Vincent smiled. Shaking his head, but grinning slightly, Jack unhooked her.
Jessica kept her gaze on Vincent. “I think we should go with them,” she said. Vincent was taken aback.
“Well we should at least talk about it first,” he said.
“What’s there to talk about?” said Jessica. “It’s a city without Lenses. If anyone knows who we’re looking for,” she glanced down at Vincent’s front pocket, at the small round disc inside, “they’ll be here.”
Vincent opened his mouth to protest, but Abigail cut him off.
“If you’re looking for help that’s not medical,” she said, “we won’t be able to do much. You’ll need Kendra.”
Jack nodded in agreement. “She’s your best bet, whatever you need.”
“And she’s at this Hole place?” said Jessica. “We can talk to her?”
“She knows us,” said Jack. “She’ll talk to you if we ask her to.”
Jessica got to her feet. She looked to Vincent. Vincent held her gaze for a second before turning to Abigail. He looked at the woman’s eyes – actual eyes, not Lenses – and in that moment, in spite of everything, he felt inexplicably safe. He turned back to Jessica. “Ok,” he said. “Let’s go.”