Harrison almost says, Don’t worry. I’ll remove myself from the premises, but knows it would be a mistake. Bots don’t do well with backtalk.
“Please wear your visitor’s badge at all times.” The bot hands him a surprisingly basic clip-on tag, although the weight of it suggests it contains some sort of tracking device. Eventually he’ll have to ditch it.
He fastens it on his shirt and strides through the gate, which opens in front of him. Inside, one of the bots hands him a tiny holo-screen and says, “Our records show this is your first visit in the last year.” Try five years, Harrison thinks. “Please let the holo-screen guide you to Janice Kelly’s room. Do not stray from the highlighted route. In the case of an emergency, simply say ‘Help,’ and someone will be along shortly. Any questions?”
Yeah, if I were to use the electromag-stick in my pocket on you, how long would it take for your circuits to fry? “No,” Harrison says.
“Proceed.”
The holo-screen vibrates once, urging him forward. He follows the concrete path to a heavy steel door, which opens as he approaches. Inside, the walls are painted white, reflecting the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. The white tiles beneath his feet complete the stark ensemble.
The hallway shoots straight out in front of him, but there’s also a stairwell to his left. He looks at his holo-screen, which has a flashing yellow light guiding him forward. Just for the hell of it, Harrison turns left into the stairwell.
The holo-screen vibrates angrily. “Please return to the highlighted route,” it says.
Harrison wheels around and moves back into the hall, squinting against the bright whiteness. The holo-screen stops vibrating, although he can tell it’s awaiting his next false move. No one comes to check on him though. Maybe it takes two or three violations before the security bots get antsy. Or maybe he has to go further off the route before it raises any alarm bells. He’s pretty sure he’ll find out eventually.
Following the screen’s instructions, he makes his way down the hall and past an orderlies’ station. The woman at the desk doesn’t look up from the screen she’s hunched over. It’s a personal device, much smaller than the huge holo-screen on her desk. She’s probably reading a novel or watching some pointless show.
The hall comes to a T, and the screen sends him left. He’s feeling more confident now, both with the navigating and his plan.
A high-pitched scream startles him as a door to the right opens and a male orderly bursts from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. The moment the door closes, the scream is cut off. Soundproof rooms, Harrison realizes. The orderly rushes past without a second glance. “This job is so not worth the money,” he mutters to himself.
For the first time since he set out this morning, Harrison wonders what his mother will be like. He remembers her before, back when she used to paint with him, play games with him, teach him magic tricks. She helped him get ready for school, made him breakfast, and was there to greet him when he returned home.
His father, on the other hand, was rarely around. Being an important man and all, he didn’t have time for his family.
When his mother was committed, he thought maybe that would change.
But Harrison learned the hard way that even when you desperately want them to, some things will never change.
Thankfully, he doesn’t remember much of the period when his mother was slowly going crazy. At least his father did something right in shielding him from that. But he’ll always remember that last day, his only visit to the asylum after she was committed. She couldn’t sit still, her hands dancing around, tapping on her legs, on the bed, on each other. She kept standing up and sitting down, standing and sitting, like she couldn’t decide which she preferred. And she was talking nonstop. Some of it made sense—like when she said she loved him and would miss him; he cried when she said that—and other things scared the crap out of him—like what she said about his brother getting a dud Death Match.
Harrison never had a brother and he promised himself he’d never visit her again. He wonders whether the worst kind of broken promise is one you make to yourself.
The holo-screen vibrates and he realizes that, lost in his thoughts and memories, he’s gone off track again. No flashing lights; no running feet; no warning shouts. “Please turn around and proceed to the stairwell,” the screen says.
“Yes, sir,” Harrison says, even though it’s a woman’s voice.
The screen ignores the jab.
He’s glad when the screen guides him up a flight of stairs, then another. For his plan to work, the higher they go the better. He enters the third floor, which looks identical to the first. There’s an orderlies’ station to his right. Finally his presence is acknowledged when a pretty young orderly smiles at him. Perfect, he thinks.
“Can I help you?” she says. He looks at his holo-screen, then back at her. Technically, he doesn’t need help. But he’s never been one to resist big brown eyes and a dazzling smile. He approaches the station, the holo-screen buzzing angrily.
“I’m visiting Janice Kelly,” he says. “I’m her son, Harrison.”
“Oh my God!” she exclaims. “She talks about you all the time.”
He feels a slight burn in his chest, like his breakfast isn’t agreeing with him. But he knows the sensation has nothing to do with food. It’s guilt. The moment his mother became a freak, he cut all ties with her. Bitterness crowds inside his mouth when he remembers how he used to join his friends in making fun of her insanity after she’d been sent to the asylum.
“Really?” he says, his tongue feeling thick and dry.
“Yes! Of course. I’m so glad you came. I’m Alice.” She sticks out a slender hand and he takes it. Her skin is cold and he retracts after only one shake. “Sorry,” she says. “This place feels like an icebox most of the time.”
He nods. The holo-screen continues to vibrate. “So…”
“Oh, yes, of course. Janice—I mean, your mother. She’s halfway down the hall, room three-oh-nine. Your visitor’s pass will open the door for you.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Call if you need anything,” she says brightly, motioning to her large desk-mounted holo-screen. “I’ll be monitoring the visit. You know, just in case.”
For a moment he’s worried she’s on to him, but then realizes Alice isn’t worried about him—she’s worried about his mother. “We’ll be fine,” he says.
A minute later, room three-oh-nine stares at him. He takes a deep breath, extends his hand, and opens the door.
~~~
For the first time ever, Janice can’t wait for Michael’s next visit. If she can only get control of her…issues…then maybe she can convince him that she’s okay. And then he’ll be forced to help her, right?
The walls begin to close in on her and she feels the urge to scream rising in her throat, but then she takes a deep breath and pretends to push back at the room. To her surprise, the feeling passes.
Tick, tock, the watch says, still stuck on 3:02. “Shut up,” she says, willing the broken device to leave her alone. A moment passes, then another. When the watch remains silent, she claps her hands gleefully. She can do this. She can be sane. Mind over matter and all that. No screaming, no talking to things, no voices in her head. Three rules to follow. There will need to be other rules, too, but she’ll start with three. And by the time her husband comes around again, she’ll be ready to surprise him with her sanity.
She remembers the way his face looked that day, cracked with mourning and dried tear tracks.
“No!” she screams. Dammit. No screaming, Janice, she thinks. Rule number one. Repeatedly, she smacks the heel of her palm into her head. As a headache starts to throb in her forehead, she thinks of a fourth rule. “No hitting yourself,” she says.
“Memories are bad,” she adds. Wait, no. Most memories are good, but not the ones she remembers. She changes the rule slightly. “Bad memories are bad,” she says to the watch. Damn. She’s
just broken rule number two: no talking to things. This is going to be harder than she thought.
The padded white walls fade, and she goes away to another place, another time.
She awakes every night from the same nightmare. Screaming. She always hears the screaming first, and it always takes her a moment to realize it’s her. By then Michael is stroking her back, whispering calming things to her.
The nightmare is persistent, even when she tries sleeping pills, sleeping in different positions, at different times. A nap during the day will result in the same terror-filled dream:
Her son ripped from his bed by harsh hands that think of him as something deadly, something dangerous, something evil. They throw him to the floor, kick at him. He’s screaming and calling for “Daddy!” but, according to Michael, he’d gone for a night swim when it happened. Sometimes she wishes her husband had been there, too, which she knows is a terrible thought.
When the boy struggles, the Hunters laugh. One of them raises a black weapon and the boy freezes, his eyes wide and beautiful and full of the fear that she’s tried to shield him from since he was born.
BOOM!
And that’s when she wakes up screaming. Whether it’s the nightmares themselves, or the lack of sleep that results, it eventually unhinges her. All she knows is that the days begin to blend together until they don’t exist anymore, until time is nothing but the space between bad dreams.
She doesn’t know how long it takes before the nightmares come during the day, too, when she’s not even sleeping. They’re so vivid and so terrifying that she screams and screams and screams, until her voice becomes a hoarse whisper. When screaming doesn’t work, she tries to climb the walls to escape the images. When Michael returns from work, he sees the claw marks, but doesn’t say anything. She pretends they don’t exist. When the strips of peeled paint don’t disappear like they should, she pretends she doesn’t exist. Sometimes that helps.
It isn’t until Harrison stops going near her that she realizes how bad things have gotten. But sometimes knowledge is an illusion, something written in books that cannot be recreated in real life. Janice can’t seem to veer from the path she’s on, even for her other son’s sake. The one who’s still alive.
Even when they lock her up. Even when he runs away from her.
And when she whispers the truth about his brother to him just before the padded door closes, the look he gives her breaks her heart into thousands of jagged irreparable pieces.
I don’t know you, his look says.
“NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!” she screams, clawing at her hair with one hand while pounding the bed with the other. “Leave. Me. ALONE!”
She sits, panting, her shirt drenched in sweat and sticking to her back, waiting for the memory—the bad, bad memory—to return. Instead, she hears a noise.
A click.
And then the door starts to open.
The face that fills the gap charges her with an emotion she hasn’t felt in many years:
Joy.
~~~
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(image of young guy walking along a high wall, massive gun in hand)
Join the border guard today and help stop Jumpers and Diggers.
(a series of images flash by: a uniformed soldier piloting a drone; an explosion; two Hispanic-looking guys with their hands above their heads.)
Speak “Strong borders” into your holo-screen to change your life.
Be Border Strong.
This advertisement paid for by the Department of Population Control.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Everyone’s already up when Benson awakes the next morning. Subconsciously, he runs his fingers across each other, where Luce’s hands held his. His lips form a smile at the memory. Although it feels like a dream, because of the tingle on his skin he knows last night was as real as anything he’s ever experienced.
As if he’s been punched in the gut, however, the smile washes away with the memory of Luce’s story. She’s seen and experienced horrible, horrible things. But she survived and escaped. Even still, he knows she’ll never truly escape what she witnessed—what almost happened to her.
His next thought is: What’s Check going to say when he finds out they held hands twice now? Does he have to tell him? Benson knows the answer is yes, but his mind cycles through possible excuses not to, none of which are valid.
As if on cue, his friend says, “Hey Bense, you’re missing everything.” The holo-screen is on in the background, the volume unmuted, but still not loud enough to hear from across the room. He can, however, read the headline:
Pop Con Lieutenant Sacked
“Mars is out,” Check says.
Benson drags himself to his feet and staggers to the couch, slumping into the last available space, between Gonzo and Rod. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes. “Where are Luce and Geoffrey?” he asks, his eyes darting around the room and finding the two missing.
“Off on an early morning Pick,” Check says. “She was in such a hurry she barely looked at me.”
“That’s because she didn’t want to see your ugly face,” Rod says. “Repugnante!”
“And she was in a hurry because your morning breath is so foul,” Gonzo adds.
“Repugnante!” Rod reiterates.
“Jealousy is a sad thing,” Check says, which sends guilt thumping in Benson’s heart. Luce held my hand, he thinks, trying out the words in his head. They sound so good to him, but he knows they’ll be like poisonous darts to his best friend’s ears.
Putting off the inevitable conversation, Benson turns his attention to the holo-screen. A video of two security bots escorting Corrigan Mars from the Pop Con building runs repeatedly, as analysts speculate as to what sort of infraction he might have committed. The last shot is of him smiling back at the building, which is both weird and creepy. “Unbelievable,” Benson says, thinking of his father right away. His father’s been working with Mars for over a decade, why would he sack him now?
“Yeah, I’d suggest celebrating,” Check says, “but I’ve got a feeling his replacement will be just as awful.” Benson nods and the story flips over to a different angle of the same building. A guy dressed in Hunter gear approaches a door manned by a single security bot. There’s something strange about him, like he’s not symmetrical. A cyborg, he realizes, with a metal arm and leg and strips of metal on his face and skull. He walks with a confident stride. No, a swagger. Like he’s untouchable, unbreakable.
The camera zooms in to show the bot scanning the cyborg Hunter’s eyes. Stiffly, the machine steps across the door, blocking it. Benson leans in, trying to listen to the story over the noise from some argument that’s broken out between Gonzo and Rod about who can do more pushups.
A clear burst of audio comes through the speakers:
“What the hell?” the cyborg says.
“Domino Destovan, your employment with the Department of Population Control has been terminated. Please step away from the door and vacate the area immediately.” The bot’s voice is emotionless.
The cameraman is in the perfect position to get a side shot of the guy’s expression, which instantly changes from a smug grin to an angry glare. “I demand to speak to someone,” he growls. His muscles are tensed, his hands fisted. He looks like he’s ready to smash through the security bot.
“If you have a concern, please speak ‘Pop Con operator’ into your holo-screen.” The security bot remains in front of the door.
The cyborg’s chest fills with air and then he lets it out slowly, as if considering what to do. He nods, as if making a decision. His fists tighten so much that the camera operator is able to catch the whitening of the Hunter’s knuckles on his human hand. Clearly someone must’ve tipped the camera operator off about what was about to go down.
A long moment passes with the cyborg and bot motionless, so that it almost looks as if the video has frozen. But then the cyborg erupts into movement, his entire body workin
g together. His stance widens, his left hand rears in front of him defensively, and his right arm—the metal one—pulls back, winding up, going for a haymaker punch.
You’d have to be crazy to take a swing at a security bot.
There’s a sudden squeal of tires and an aut-car slides to a stop next to the cyborg, who pauses in mid-punch, arching his eyebrows and staring at the car. Benson’s lips curl into a smile; this jerk’s about to get a beat down. The door opens and there’s a shout from the car. “Get in!” The Hunter hesitates for the barest of seconds, before striding to the vehicle and sliding in, the door slamming behind him. With the roar of an engine, the car zooms off.
Benson stares blankly at the screen. What the hell just happened? “Did you see that?” he says to no one in particular.
“I could do more pushups with one arm than you could do with two,” Rod says.
“That’s what your momma said to me last night,” Gonzo says, which doesn’t seem to make sense in the context of the argument. Check is laughing so loudly he’s snorting.
Hopeless, Benson thinks. “You’ve seen this story already, yeah?” Benson says. His friends are typical news junkies; even they would pause their fighting to watch a breaking news bite.
“Only about twelve times,” Check says. “Rod thinks the cyborg wasn’t really fired, and that the government has bigger plans for him. Gonzo thinks Rod’s an idiot, and that the cyborg will be broken down for parts, living out the rest of his life as a one-armed, one-legged street beggar.”
“What do you think?” Benson asks.
“I think this Domino Destovan character has some good friends who didn’t want to see him get hurt,” Check says.
His friend could’ve slapped him and it wouldn’t have stung any more. Good friends…slap! Get hurt…slap! For a split-second he wonders if Luce already came clean and told Check about what happened between them. But no, his friend is grinning at Rod and Gonzo, who have dropped onto all fours, doing pushups in tandem, counting together.