However, for Benson, emotional wounds are a completely different matter. The deep pain from the deaths of his friends and loved ones is always there, a constant reminder of what he’s had and what he’s lost. He doesn’t think those internal wounds will ever heal, not entirely. And maybe they shouldn’t, he thinks. Maybe this is our burden to carry as the survivors.
He knows the world is changing for the better, but it’s going to take time. Sadly, thousands died in the Saint Louis bombings orchestrated by Jarrod and the Lifers. More senseless killings in a world where violence is becoming all too commonplace. And yet, surely, slowly, the wheels of change ease forward, trying to gain momentum as they bounce over rocks and imperfections in the road. Events of the magnitude that occurred in Saint Louis, as well as their subsequent fallout, pretty much guaranteed that the RUSA would have to take a long hard look at itself. For that, Benson is glad.
So while somewhere out there bodies are still being pulled from the wreckage, debris is still being moved from the streets, and scared people are still comforting each other, it’s not for nothing. As they rebuild their city, they can reshape the world, too.
His father is coming home today. The trial was short and took place behind closed doors, but in the end the shattered government told the story they wanted to tell: That Michael Kelly was a hero. Jarrod, the leader of the terrorist group known as the Lifers, besieged the president’s private residence, killing his entire security detail. Michael Kelly, who happened to be there as a guest of the president, did everything in his power to save President Ford, but failed, barely managing to kill the terrorist himself, and escape with his own life. Any sins he may have committed in the past have been forgiven, and he’s a free man. The city needed a hero, and they got one.
Benson laughs as he rereads the news article, amazed how powerful the press really is. If they write it, it must be true. His father told a very different story when he was permitted to visit him in prison.
“Insane, right?” Harrison says, crutching over awkwardly and plopping down next to Benson. His brother’s hair is starting to fill in again, as is his. Seeing Harrison’s bright blue eyes up close is once more like looking in the mirror. Which is the way it’s supposed to be.
They’re in the house Harrison grew up in, the house Benson should have grown up in. Although it feels weird, after a few weeks it’s starting to feel like home. He thinks it might be because of all the people living in it with him, like maybe home is wherever your loved ones are, and not some place on a map. “Why isn’t there a story in there about my hoverboard move that saved Mom and destroyed all the Pop Con data? Or your lucky shot that took out Charles Boggs? We should’ve been the heroes, not Dad.”
Benson laughs, because his brother is grinning. “Lucky?”
“Looked like luck from where I was,” Harrison says, shrugging.
“As the older brother, I’m pretty sure I taught you everything you know,” Benson says.
Although his brother smiles and punches him on the arm, he can still see the grimace at the reminder that Benson was really the first one born. “My leg,” he grunts. Benson lets him have his little lie.
“I think we probably aren’t getting called heroes because we fled the crime scene and no one actually knows who we are,” Benson surmises.
“You think? Yeah, that’s probably it,” Harrison says, flicking on the holo. A Hawk-eye view appears of an aut-car coasting along one of the intact roads left in Saint Louis. All around the vehicle are patches of destruction, like black eyes on the face of the city. “I still can’t believe Jarrod blew up half of Saint Louis,” Harrison murmurs.
“Technically it was a quarter of the city,” Benson says.
Harrison makes his voice high-pitched and annoying, nothing like how Benson thinks he really sounds. “Technically it was a quarter of the city,” he mimics.
“Just saying.” Check told him what Geoffrey did, and why Pop Con headquarters didn’t blow up with the rest of the city, killing them all. Check and Rod managed to stop Geoffrey from connecting the detonator to his explosive vest. Which he supposes makes his best friends heroes too. Saint Louis is full of heroes, it seems, and the people don’t even know it.
“You know what’s weird?” Harrison says.
“The fact that we look exactly alike and I’m still better looking?” Benson says.
Harrison ignores him, although he does get a smirk. “As soon as we found out I’m really the Slip and you’re not, everything went back to zero. I feel like I hit a big reset button and avoided a part of my life that would’ve been terrible.”
Benson is somewhat surprised that his brother would speak so openly about what they learned about their births. He tries to catch his twin’s eyes, but Harrison continues to stare at the holo. “I guess that’s kind of funny,” Benson says. “In a good way. No one should have to go through that. No one should have to feel like they’re not wanted, hated simply for being born. In the end, we’re all just humans, connected by things we can’t touch, like laughter and love and our fear of being left behind. Our fear of death. Of not being included in something we think is important and great but don’t really understand.”
Harrison finally turns to meet his gaze. “Nice speech, bro,” he says, and Benson can tell he means it.
Just as the aut-car on the holo turns down a familiar road, Janice comes tumbling down the stairs with Destiny in tow. Check, Rod, and Geoffrey aren’t far behind. Simon and Minda, descending gingerly, bring up the rear.
“He’s home!” Janice shouts, throwing the door wide open. Benson smiles and glances at the screen, where their house comes into view, the door opening outward and Janice stepping onto the front porch.
“So weird,” Harrison says, but he lets Benson help him up.
With Janice’s arm around his waist, Michael Kelly steps inside carrying a ball of fur that immediately leaps to the floor and bounds into Harrison’s waiting arms. “My little hero,” he says, kissing Lola’s forehead. Benson scratches her under the chin and goes to embrace his father.
“Welcome home,” he says.
“You too, Son. You too.”
Once Michael Kelly is inside and the holo-news reporters have been chased away, the real celebration begins. There are hugs and kisses and war stories. And the tale of a brave little BotDog that refused to obey her own programming; Lola’s an example to them all that you don’t have to be what someone says you are. You can be whatever you choose.
They celebrate not only for each other, but for Luce and Gonzo, who sacrificed everything to save them. For the thousands of children who could now be born without needing authorization, without fear of termination. For those that paved the way before them, and for those who never gave up.
There will be a bold new world of their creation, and they celebrate that too. Benson knows that the Kelly’s started out as four, and they’ll end as four-plus. No matter what.
No matter how hard the fight.
No matter what trials await them.
They’ve got each other’s backs, because that’s what families do.
~~~
Geoffrey clings to the memories of his sister and Gonzo, because that’s what he has. As much as he’s lost, he can’t lose those.
He’s slowly coming to terms with the hand he played in the events that transpired on the night of the Sonic Boom concert. How wrong he was, about everything. He knows it was grief and anger that drove his actions, and that if he’d listened to his heart for a single second, things might’ve been different.
It’s hard not to blame himself, but Check says he shouldn’t. A detonator linked to the bombs that destroyed the city was found on Jarrod’s dead body. If Geoffrey somehow failed to press the button, Jarrod would have anyway. The only explosives Geoffrey was solely responsible for were strapped to his chest, and those ones were never detonated. Even if he might’ve done it—like really really might’ve done it—he didn’t. His friends saved him from himself, which is what frie
nds have to do sometimes. They saved far more than his life that day. They saved his soul too. He hopes he’ll be able to pay them back someday.
In the moments just before sleep, he sees Luce in his mind, her memory more vivid than the clearest image from a holo-screen:
“Last time,” Luce says. She picks him up and twirls him around and he feels like he’s flying. Since she saved him from the orphanage, he always feels like he’s flying. Like he’s living. There’s not much to eat, but it’s enough. Because he has her. And she has him.
She tosses him onto the couch and he giggles. “One more time?” he begs.
Her smile is a million miles wide, her blue eyes sparkling. “One more last time,” she agrees, scooping him up again.
~~~
“I’m surprised your dad didn’t lay down the law and make us sleep in separate rooms,” Destiny whispers in his ear.
Harrison grins in the dark, relishing the body heat they get to share. “I think it might be more a matter of limited beds than anything else.”
“Are you saying we’re only doing this to make sure everyone gets a bed?”
“Well, my bed is the biggest…”
Destiny throws off the covers. “Well then, I guess we could invite a few of the smaller people to squeeze in with us. Geoffrey, your mom…”
Harrison grabs Destiny and she squeals as he drags her back. “And not be able to do this?” he says, his lips finding hers. Their bodies intertwine and they forget about limited sleeping space and coming home parties and the damaged world they live in.
~~~
Janice is happy. So happy. For a while she thought happiness was the sun that never reached her room in the asylum. The wind that battered the window but never came inside. The birds singing their hearts out but never loud enough for her to hear their songs. She thought happiness was unreachable, as angry as Zoran the Adventurer trapped on a wristwatch strapped to her arm.
Now she knows it was just hiding, for a while. She thinks maybe happiness isn’t an automatic thing—that sometimes you have to go through a whole lot of awful to find it. That sometimes it comes when you least expect it, and so you should enjoy every second of joy you get.
That’s what she’s doing now. Feeling her husband’s hand against hers is part of it. In the asylum his hands would burn her, but now they feel so gentle, so loving. It’s not that he changed into a monster and then changed back—no, he was always the same person—it’s that he hid his true self so he could do the impossible things that he never wanted to have to do. Now his smile is worth a million years in the asylum.
Benson seems happy too, talking with his friends, Check and Rod, joking like normal teenagers should. Not planning missions and wearing disguises and diving in front of bullets.
“The time after,” as Janice likes to call it, seems to be helping Minda and Simon as well. Minda isn’t so serious all the time and Simon doesn’t curl his fists as much. They’ve been talking to each other a lot. She can see them having a future. And beautifully giant babies.
As for her, she’s content just to be herself. Mom and Janice and Mrs. Kelly and, if they ever need her again, the key.
Epilogue
One year later
Benson’s read the article three times already, and he still finds it hard to believe. Not that the headline on his holo allows for any ambiguity or confusion:
The Department of Population Control Officially Dissolved
Benson shakes his head. He supposes the world seems like an impossible place sometimes, until you stand up and make it possible. That’s what they did—all of them. Even Lola, the unexpected hero.
A note in fine print at the bottom of the article catches Benson’s eye: In accordance with recent updates to the Freedom of Speech Act, comments will no longer be monitored.
Beneath that, there are more than twenty thousand comments, none of which have been removed for disciplinary action. Some are against the dissolution of Pop Con, but the majority are overwhelmingly in favor of the change.
Benson thinks back to all that has happened since the night of the concert. Minda participated in a government investigation into alleged food surpluses. As it turns out, food wasn’t as scarce as everyone was made to think. Instead, the twenty percent surplus was being sent overseas, to the United Asian States, who’d been blackmailing the RUSA with threats of nuclear attack. Hence the “nuclear testing” in the Pacific, which was really a reminder to President Ford Jr. to continue his illegal exports. When Ford died, the arrangement was flipped upside down and the UAS retaliated, mounting a nuclear assault. Most of the missiles were shot down, but others hit their targets, destroying several major cities which will likely never be rebuilt. The tragedy continues to weigh heavily on everyone’s minds these days, and Benson knows the country will mourn for years, as they should. Ford’s successor, President Anderson, was brought in after a series of emergency elections. Benson thinks she’s a good woman, although he wasn’t eighteen yet so he couldn’t vote for her. Michael and Janice Kelly did though. Minda too. The new president’s first act was to promptly rejoin the United Nations with a promise to make international relations a priority for her presidency. Her approval rating soared in her first week. The war with the UAS continues, but with most of the world against them, they aren’t firing as many nukes. From what Benson’s been reading, a ceasefire is likely to be reached in days, not months.
After an anonymous tip, a separate investigation uncovered President Ford’s super soldier program, which was immediately shutdown. All of the data pointed to major concerns about the psychological impacts of the technology, which had been ignored by President Ford and his scientists.
So much good, but a whole lot of bad, too. That’s just life, Benson knows. There will always be evil and wrongness in the world, but that’s why it’s even more important to stand and fight for what you believe in.
Benson understands that things aren’t perfect, and never will be, but they’re getting better. There’s a surplus of food, and according to the article he just read, the notion of an “Ideal Population” will also be ended. There will be no more Death Matches, no more Birth Authorizations, no more UnBees, and no more Slips. He’s the last of an unwanted generation, and that’s fine by him.
It’s a better world because of people Benson is related to, and people he met along the way. And a little because of him, too.
In his own little slice of the world, Benson’s been enjoying school, as weird as that is. Rod has managed to get in a few fights—it will take a long time before everyone accepts the fact that Jumpers and Diggers are just people, like the rest of them—but Check and Benson had his back. Harrison did too, and now Benson’s twin wears his black eye proudly to detention with the rest of them. The guys who started the fight were expelled when a couple of witnesses came forward and told the truth.
Benson has at least one class with each of his friends, including Destiny. Although he’s still ahead of her by a percentage point or two, she’s giving him a run for his money for valedictorian. He never fails to remind his brother that he’s lucky to have a smart girlfriend to balance out his own mental deficiencies. They can both laugh at that because Harrison is also in the top ten percent of their class.
Although his twin has resumed his rightful position as star of the guy’s hoverboard team, Destiny is already getting some serious attention on the girl’s hoverskating circuit, winning two races out of three. The local press is calling them ‘the hover couple’ or ‘HC’. Along with Benson, his mom, and Lola the WonderBotDog, Michael Kelly never misses one of his son’s matches or Destiny’s races. Though Lola barks like crazy, Michael’s cheers are always the loudest.
Geoffrey still has his demons, and he faces them every week with a therapist, but he’s doing better and better. Michael and Janice Kelly already love him like he’s their own flesh and blood, as if he’s not even adopted. And he’ll always be Benson’s kid brother, even if Benson has trouble swallowing sometimes when
he sees shades of Luce in the boy’s familiar eyes.
Simon has gone back to Canada to be close to his extended family. According to the holo-messages he sends every week, he’s doing well, and has learned to enjoy the peace of his daily visits to his wife’s grave. He meditates every day now, instead of just once a year. He’s back in the security business, and Benson knows he’ll flourish—you’d have to be crazy to go up against him.
Benson’s mother still has her eccentricities, but then again, she always did. Maybe she’ll never fully recover from the trauma that made something snap in her mind, but that doesn’t seem so important to Benson anymore. She still has more good to bring to the world than most people, and she’s even taking a teaching course on the holo. He thinks she’ll be fantastic in a classroom, although her unique style might take some getting used to.
Michael Kelly has become somewhat of an enigma to the nation. The hero recluse, they call him. There has already been interest in him running for office in three years. There are reporters out front every day hoping for an exclusive, but Benson doesn’t think his father will ever give them one, nor reenter the political arena. From the satisfied look in his father’s eyes, he knows Michael Kelly is happy just being with his family, at least for now.
If not for his father’s impossible decision almost eighteen years ago, to switch Benson for Harrison, things might’ve been different. Although he knows Harrison continues to harbor some level of resentment toward their father for what he did, Benson never will, because it was the right thing to do. One choice can change everything in this world, and in this case, the paths his father sent them all down led to something good. Once they got past the trials and heartache, they reached this world.