8. Lucid (Update, Part 2)

A slow fingertip flicked through the glowing squares, the electronic ID tags. It passed over name after name: Dr. Alvarez, Dr. Cushing, Dr. Kin, Dr. Morton, Dr. Sperry, Dr. Salvatore. It finally rested on Dr. Whitaker. Whit grabbed the badge and shoved it in his pocket, then headed toward Surgery.

What a raw deal to be called in at this hour, he thought. But something had gone wrong and the new kid was having seizures. This happened sometimes, and Whit knew there were only a few options left to him. Though he had worked in medicine for years, he had only been at this facility a few weeks. It was no hospital.

***

The image slipped away from the back of Penny’s closed eyes. Next, she began to hear voices inside the cavernous building, but could not detect the direction from which they came. Somehow she knew it was a doctor and another man, an auditor or an investor, maybe.

“What does it do?”

The other answered like an advertisement. “Have you ever imagined your mind transplanted into another body, sir? Have you ever wanted to be two places at once? To attend to everything in your environment, down to the slightest detail, without being utterly overwhelmed? Have you ever wanted to know exactly which strings to pull in order to influence someone else---to make them forget something you’d rather they didn’t think of again, or to call up some distant memory that it would have otherwise been impossible for them to remember?

"This is our attempt. By rearranging the connections between neurons--- by redirecting the course of a developing brain---that’s what it does.”

“Why?”

“Why, progress!  Expanding human possibility, understanding one of the most complex systems in our universe. We may use it to better ourselves, but also to harness the potential of these otherwise hapless Naturals who don’t understand their talents and cannot refine them and apply them in a useful way. It could also prove a helpful tool in quashing rebellion, should it ever arise.”

The auditor thought a moment. His voice came back much older than the doctor’s. “From the Rurals, you think?”

This made the doctor chuckle. “No, no. If it happened, it would most likely come from within. Students, turncoats, the like. Even if the Rurals had the brains and the technology, they don’t have the information. Their primary enemies are each other. They have bred so much suspicion and prejudice among their clans that they hardly imagine that there is a larger force at work. And if it even occurs to them, they can hardly give this opponent a name or a face, much less pinpoint a location. They are not the danger.”

“Careful now!  I grew up a Rural.”

The laugh the two men shared was hollow. Then the auditor proceeded.

“Can you scan his brain, see what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling?

“We can create feelings, but we can only direct thoughts. He is young, but not young enough for us to have the sway we would have liked. Pity he was born out there and wasted so much time. But to return to the matter of your question, a scan will show us some things. Rudimentary things, such as his ability to understand speech---and yes, he will learn to speak several of the most useful languages, and to read and write many more. You see, we can only start small. It may seem trivial, but it is progress." 

"What you're telling me then is that what you find on a scan now merely validates what you can already observe in his speech and actions?" The auditor removed his eyeglasses, rubbed them on his shirt, and began to shuffle some papers into his metal briefcase.

"Not 'merely,' sir. It offers more insight for us than he might volunteer on the surface. We may detect whether he is tired, for example, or whether he is paying attention.” The doctor seemed dissatisfied with his answer. He added, "And we find he is always paying attention.”

Penny could see them now, even though she had still not opened her eyes. A screen in front of the two men revealed an infrared view of a chamber where a figure lay on its back.  A small square of light glowed in its cranium.

The auditor jabbed his finger toward the scene. “What happens if that malfunctions? What if he loses control? Or you do?” His questions were now deadpan, as though he were reading from a script or checklist.

The doctor’s teeth gleamed. “Nigh unthinkable. But in that case, we are very good at hunting.”

Penny bolted from her sleep into a sitting position. She was unsure whether it was a drug or a dream that had whispered to her, or something else entirely.

 ***

Minutes later, Kai turned over slowly, rubbing his eyes. The room was bright and steely. He looked down at his arms and was reminded of the time he had fallen into a briar patch at the age of 5. His scalp felt extremely sensitive. It had been shaved, and when he touched it, he found it was covered in bumps. A small mirror on the wall beside him revealed more, leaving him open-mouthed; he had never seen stitches in anything but cloth before.

Kai blinked at the ceiling and spotted a camera embedded there. He examined it with wide eyes for some time before calmly addressing it. “I know that you can see me,” he murmured.  “I am awake now. What will we do next?”

7. Winds (Update, part I)

(Second part to come soon!)

Ryan stood next to Sciarpa on the silent helipad. The sun was just coming up, its rays blinking from the crowd of glass-paned towers that spread out in front of them.  He still wondered why she’d brought him along on her investigation of Hank’s house.

If Ryan hadn’t been more familiar with her, he would’ve been surprised at the mildly contented expression on the detective’s face. But Sciarpa always appeared unruffled and would be loath to reveal any touch of disappointment at leaving the cabin empty-handed. Whether her search had truly turned up nothing, Ryan was unsure. And tired as he was, he found himself growing progressively curious about what he and Sciarpa had seen over the past few hours.  He wondered if he could prod her for clues, even though he knew very well he could not.

 She did not take kindly to blind, haphazard questions for which she did not know the speaker’s motive.  Ryan called this sort of questioning “Go Fish,” after a game he remembered playing with his grandmother when he was young.  This had been back in the days of genealogical records, when people still kept track of their relatives, their parents. When families still lived together. That was only for the rural folk now.

Ryan often had to keep his interest in the past under wraps.  Besides meeting a few days a week with some old-timers at an off-the-record historical society in the suburbs, he did not publically indulge his hobby. Libraries, when he could still find an open one, proved tricky; reference librarians asked too many questions. Antique stores were slowly disappearing as well. Museums were plentiful, but their contents inaccurate.

Stowed away in Ryan’s apartment were as many books and artifacts and memorabilia as he could get his hands on. Yet whenever he left that space, the rest of the world collided with his memories, making him feel as if he had been dreaming for nearly twenty years of his life.

A landing helicopter broke into his thoughts. Sciarpa had just ended a phone call and was putting away her earpiece.  She caught her hair up into a smooth knot before the wind from the chopper blades threatened to tangle it. She looked at Ryan, giving him a joking salute. “You are relieved, Mr. Kesseler.” Her voice was dry, and she began to smile. “Go home, get some booze, and take a nap. You did all right tonight.”

He shouted at her over the noise as they walked toward the parking garage attached to the rooftop: “I wish we’d been able to ride in your car like you said earlier.”  

She continued walking . “Hmm? What’d you have in mind?”

“Just hate those agents and officers breathing down my neck all the time, you know?”

Sciarpa grinned slyly at him.

“It’s reached the point where all you have to do is give me that look,” he sighed, “ and I know you’re resisting the urge to formulate some innuendo about breathing down my neck yourself.  Damn, Sciarpa, who taught you to be professional?”

Sciarpa had two distinct forms of laughter: a soft chuckle and a cackle. She used the latter, then said, “Cut the grumbling. You’re an agent yourself, just a different sort. And I am not the sort of woman who would talk to my partner that way while on a case.” 

Ryan frowned at her. He sputtered a moment.  “Well, I-I’d like to know just what you mean by ‘partner’ and ‘case,’Sciarpa, if it’s not too much trouble, please.”

“Report for your shift as usual tonight. Go see Cohen. You’ll find he’s already had the contents of your desk moved out and over to my office complex. I’ve decided to take you on as a member of my team.”

“Now wait, I didn’t ask for a promotion! If Cohen is firing me, just say so. I don’t need games from you. I thought you were a private consultant.”

“I am, but I find I have need of an assistant. Tonight was a sort of trial run, and I have a temporary project for which I now think you would be well matched. You can terminate our partnership at any time after the completion of this project. And should you choose not to take it on at all, I may be able to look among your colleagues for a suitable replacement.”

“What is this temporary project, what is this? Why do you want me? You know I didn’t do anything in that house.”

Sciarpa leaned toward him and lightly tapped at the waist of his jacket. Something solid rested in an interior pocket.  It made a sound like hissing and spinning gears when Sciarpa touched it. “You stole an item from one of the children’s rooms, didn’t you? Right under the agents’ noses. I’d say that’s a cause for some attention.”

Ryan blushed furiously, but didn’t look away. “Yes, I did,” he mumbled. He didn’t take out the small metal device. Somehow, he sensed Sciarpa knew what it was. Even when he, who had handled it and looked it up and down, still hadn’t the faintest idea.

“It’s all right, agent. Keep it. I’ll see you tonight then, will I?”

“I still don’t understand---“

“Speak with Cohen. You may choose whether you wish to take on the post after you receive more information. But as I’ve already had your things transferred, suffice to say that I wager you will accept. Until tonight, then. That will be all, Kesseler.”

Her heels clicked across the pavement as Ryan stood open-mouthed. He patted at the lining of his coat and quickly ran his fingers over the cold metal object in the pocket. It would be dangerous to keep, he decided. But he couldn’t dispose of it here on the rooftop.

 He recalled how he had once let the name of his grandmother’s card game slip to Sciarpa and she’d calmly told him she didn’t believe such a game had ever existed. He had never been more careful after that--- until the mysterious device in the child’s room had caught his eye. He felt not only the need to possess it, but to understand what it did, from what era it had come, who had made it.

As soon as the detective had vanished out of sight, Ryan also headed for the garage.

6. Formatting

Ryan looked out the helicopter window. It was still dark, but the moon provided enough illumination that he could make out vague features on the ground below. Over the dark wing, he saw miles of treetops, glowing white in the moonlight filtered softly through the clouds. Sciarpa sat across from him, chin propped on her palm, gazing out the window. He watched her, keeping his head turned to the window. In spite of her biting sarcasm and endless teasing, she was capable of sincere genuineness, which Ryan had seen only briefly. He turned back to the window, silently reviewing what he knew about 217.

Their helicopter landed a few dozen yards away from the house. The other helicopter had landed a short distance away, and a man in thick armor carrying his helmet under his arm was walking towards them. He and Sciarpa exchanged a brief salute before he began briefing them.

“Our team arrived twenty-five minutes ago ma'am. We've been through the whole house, it's clear. We found the testing room; two chambers in the basement,” he quipped in a loud, curt tone.

“Good work,” Sciarpa answered. Her voice was soft, Ryan noticed. He wondered how long she had been on duty. “No one went in either chamber?”

“No, ma'am. Protocol was followed.”

“Good, thank you. I’ll take it from here.”

“There’s something else,” the lieutenant said, stopping her. “The house was empty when we got here. No children, no weapons, no drugs. Clean.”

Sciarpa looked at him for a moment, mulling this over. “Alright. Thank you.”

She turned and started for the house, and Ryan followed. He had no idea what the abandonment of the house meant, but it didn’t sit right. Normally when a harvester’s house was raided, the teams busted open the doors, and screaming kids were scrambling all over the place. Sometimes the older ones would hear the helicopters before they landed, get guns and shoot at the soldiers. That was one instance where the clause “non-lethal force” actually meant something: they would never risk hurting a Natural, and at a distance it was impossible to tell which ones were and were not of value. 217’s house was dark, and quiet: someone had cut the power lines to the house, they were not told whether it was the security team or someone else. Ryan followed Sciarpa up the creaking, aged porch steps and into the house. Her heels clacked loudly on the hard wooden floor. The house was old, and well used: the walls were covered in warped, peeling wallpaper the color of coffee stains, the floorboards were unvarnished and uneven. Sciarpa could tell it had been built by hand: the ceiling height varied from room to room, and the corners were not square. Looking around, she saw that nothing was square or even, adding to the surreal quality of the house.


Sciarpa told Ryan to check the second floor; he wasn’t allowed in the testing chambers. For some reason, the floor was carpeted; he assumed it was for the children. As they were told, the rooms were empty. The soldiers hadn’t disturbed them more than necessary. The children’s rooms were mostly bare: a bed or crib, a few toys or books littered the floors. He noted that each room had one or two items obviously not meant for children: a weightlifting set, a computer, a set of oddly shaped mirrors and lenses were a few things he observed. These things looked almost new, and were kept neatly organized, unlike the other items scattered about. Ryan wondered why Sciarpa had brought him along, and why she had sent him up here, knowing he would see this. He wasn’t sure he was allowed; watchers were kept nearly as much in the dark as soldiers.

Sciarpa descended the stairs to the basement, passing two armed soldiers on the way. She had them shut the door behind her; policy was very strict about investigating testing areas. She reached the basement: it was a narrow hallway of bare cinderblock, lighted by light bulbs hanging from wires. She presumed the basement lights were on a circuit separate from the rest of the house. There were two doors: a wooden one place halfway down the hall on the left side, and a steel one at the end. She crossed the hall to the steel door, inserting her card into a slot on its face. The latched clicked, and the door opened slightly inward. She pushed past it, and florescent lights blinked on. The room was circular, and a set of stairs led down to the floor some ten feet below the door. The walls were lined with equipment: weights, glass spheres, intricate brass machines, computers and unidentifiable electronic equipment were placed neatly on shelves. At the center of the room was a large walnut desk, with leather chairs facing each other on either side. Sciarpa walked around the room’s circumference, taking notes on the various objects. She looked through the desks drawers with disinterest: typical entry-level psychology examinations, memory and intelligence tests, none answered. There was nothing she didn’t expect; the notes were a formality. The real treasure lay in the other room.

The wooden door required a key, rather than a card. Like the hallway, it was lit by a single, bare light bulb. Filing cabinets lined the walls, about half were empty. Sciarpa scanned the files, looking at the final scores and tossing them aside. Hank had tested duds almost exclusively, and the scores had dropped off significantly beginning about a decade ago. Given his results, he would have been either fired or “remotivated,” as it was called, sooner rather than later. Sciarpa was getting frustrated with his lack of results; she hadn’t found a single subject that had scored over a twenty yet. She was about to give up when she found a file out of place, the final score torn from the page. She looked over the rest of the review, but Hank had crossed out so much it was practically unreadable. She flipped through the pages, frustrated with the lack of information, until she got to the front page. The top few lines were left unedited:


First Name: Penelope
Last Name: ________
Age: 3
Potential Codes: CCK, PSY, PRB, NTL/INS


Sciarpa smiled. This was what she was looking for. With this, the final score didn’t matter. If they could find this subject, she thought, maybe they would have the chance to-
A memory interrupted her scheming. The other team had picked up two children, a boy and a girl. Hank had been keeping the girl, much longer than he should have. If this was her file... Sciarpa’s grin widened. This was exactly what she had wanted, what she had been searching for out in these crumbling hovels. She folded the file and slipped it into her coat pocket, turning off the light as she exited the room.


Ryan fiddled with some of the machines in a child’s room. 217’s room had contained nothing of interest, and he was unsure of what else he was supposed to do. Watchers would typically never see a trainer’s house, much less be asked to investigate one. He was staring at an intricate, obtuse device when Sciarpa yelled to him from the bottom of the stairs, “Kesseler! We’re leaving!”

He quickly put the device back, bolting out of the room and down the stairs. Sciarpa met him at the bottom, and after a brief word with the lieutenant they boarded the helicopter. Ryan waited until they were strapped in before asking, “So? What did you find, did he have anything?”

Sciarpa looked out the window, staying silent for a moment as the airship gently lifted off the ground. With turning away, she replied, “No, nothing. He hadn’t tested anything over a twenty in years. There was nothing.”


=====================================================================


Penny awoke suddenly. She didn’t remember falling asleep, nor could she tell how long she had been sleeping. She looked around the cabin; Kai was laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. There was light coming through the window, and she crossed the room to get a closer look. The helicopter was resting on a landing pad, and she could see  row after row of identical aircraft, their rotor blades neatly folded behind them. The landing pad was lined with slowly-pulsing blue lights; Penny assumed they were for landing at night, as they had. Beyond the helicopters, she could see the lights of the city: enormous, glittering towers of black glass, with lights of every color dotting the crystal landscape like sparks from a forge. The door unlocked and was pushed open; two heavily armed guards entered. Kai watched them closely. A man with slicked back hair and a black business suit entered after them, flanked by more guards. He looked at them for a moment, before motioning to the helmeted men.
“Cuffs on them both, chain them too. Two to each.”


The men moved towards Penny and Kai, drawing hand cuffs from their belt holsters. Kai pressed his back to the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible. One of the guards grabbed Penny’s wrist, popping open the handcuffs at the same time. Penny had felt scared when they had entered; the physical aggression turned her terror into anger. She pulled her arm back, shouting, “What the hell are you doing? Leave me alone, you son of a bitch! I ain’t goin’ anywhere with you, you big ugly bastard! I’ll--- Hey! Leave him alone, he didn’t do nothing! Don’t touch him, damn it!”


One of the soldiers had Kai in handcuffs, and had attached a chain to them. Kai looked at her and briefly shook his head. The man kept the chain taut, pushing Kai along with a massive hand between his shoulder blades. Seeing the passivity in his face, she begrudgingly allowed herself to be cuffed and escorted off the aircraft. On the landing pad, a cold wind tousled her hair. Both she and Kai were held by two guards each, following the man in the suit. A massive wall of concrete and glass rose before them; looking out over the edge of the pad Penny saw that they were high from the ground. She had never been higher than the top of a tree, and she felt sick not being able to see the ground. When they reached the building, the man stood in front of the wall for a moment. A pane of glass slid down, revealing a hallway lit by harsh, halogen bulbs. They entered, and walked through a maze of identical hallways, all lined with dark glass doors. The carpet was a deep red, and the walls were painted a light gray. After what seemed to Penny to be hours, they reached a large, square room. The ceiling opened up into a cylindrical tower, with balconies evenly spaced on its interior. She squinted, but could not see the top. A heavy, gloved hand pushed her head back down. The dark-suited man gave one of the guards a pair of keycards and a small stack of papers, saying something Penny couldn’t hear. He glanced at her, said something further to the guard, then turned from them towards one of the many hallways that intersected the atrium. The guards pushed her towards another, and she saw Kai being led towards a large rectangular door. She hadn’t known Kai for more than a number of hours, but something about him made her fiercely protective. She lunged suddenly, throwing the bulky soldier off balance.


“Hey, where’re you taking him? He’s just a kid, you can’t take him away! Let go of me goddammit, let go! I have to stay with him, you can’t take him! Let him go, I’ll kill you if you don’t let him go! You goddamn sons of---”


Her jaw clamped shut as thousands of volts took command of her body. She dropped to the floor, violently convulsing, her skin burning as electricity arced to the metal cuffs. Her muscles were contracted with pain, and she lay in a tight ball on the floor, screaming and sobbing without knowing that she was doing either. Before she lost consciousness, she saw Kai through her tears, looking at her over his shoulder as the massive doors shut behind him.



Kai awoke hours later. The last thing he remembered was walking down the strange, squat hallway, as the large men behind him pushed him along. He was on his back, and whatever he was lying on was cold and hard. He started to move, and found that his muscles would not obey him. He looked down the length of his body, and felt fear turn to panic at the sight. He was bound to a steel table with thick, leather straps across his arms, legs and chest. Tubes and needles trailed from his arms, and wires ran from electrodes placed all over his body. Different colored liquids were running through the tubes, and he felt them gently surging into his veins. A heart rate monitor was beeping somewhere behind him; he heard its rate steadily increasing. As he turned his head, he felt a thick bundle of wires move with it. Some of them were attached to electrodes stuck to his temples, other ran under his skin, inside his skull. All over his body he felt wires and needles in his skin. A blinding white light flashed on above him, and a voice filtered through a speaker broke the silence:


“Doctor, it’s hyperventilating, we have to start now. Permission to begin deep sedation.”


A man appeared over Kai’s face. He was wearing a white coat, and a surgeon’s mask and headcap. Kai could see a few graying hairs not covered by the cap. The man’s eyes were crinkled with joy.
“Permission granted, 20 cc’s, level 40. Take him down.”


Kai struggled against the heavy anesthetics, trying desperately to make a fading world stay solid. As his mind clouded and the lights dimmed, his last thought was a single name.


Penny.

5. Divergence

Detective Sciarpa adjusted her eyeglasses as she fired up her car. She tried to recall the day she’d helped enlist Henry Harper. Damn fool, if memory served. Amid a slew of other questions, she had rounded their interview off with a half-joking “Can you piss clean?”

He’d simply nodded.

“You’re working for us, then,” she’d said.

It wasn’t standard protocol to ask. Employees were never tested in this way. In fact, users made some of the best trainers and harvesters if they stayed lucid enough to be reliable; easy to pay, easy to please. Yet Sciarpa always loved seeing the reactions she garnered from this particular query, and always thought it made her sound tougher than she felt.

Hank had been hired years back when Sciarpa was still a fresh face in the government ranks. She’d since moved up the ladder and into law enforcement. A recent graduate to private consulting, Sciarpa emulated the old school---P.I.’s from the days before such independence became undesirable and obsolete. Her good standing and prized intuition allowed her to get away with it.

It was now close to 3 in the morning. Ryan Kesseler was on his coffee break when Sciarpa walked into his cubicle.

After his supervisor, Cohen, had dispatched the helicopter teams, he’d flashed a toothy grin at Ryan and said, “Get your lady friend on the line. We need her to go over and meet the squad at that yokel’s house to try and clean the place out. Have her come here first, though.”

Ryan had grimaced. Not because he feared a sharp retort from the detective upon waking her in the middle of the night; Sciarpa was an insomniac. No, it was a bit more touchy than that.

Sciarpa had a way of flirting that got under his skin more than it pleased him. She liked to give the impression that she and Ryan shared a lengthy and somewhat sordid history. They did not. But that never kept the other watchers and even his supervisor from chuckling and muttering at him whenever she came by.

Sciarpa had merely been Ryan’s trainer when he’d first taken the watcher position straight out of school. They’d shared a few lunch dates, but nothing serious. She’d been on her way to better things, he’d realized. Outstanding performance on some project or other had gotten her promoted to the police squad before they’d known each other a month. He never even got her first name, and hadn’t bothered to ask since.

Besides that, Sciarpa was pretty and fit and in her mid-fifties. Something about the fact that he was attracted to a woman nearly 20 years his senior bothered him, though he wasn’t sure why it should. He couldn’t say whether she’d ever been truly interested in him, either. But as it was, he presumed she just enjoyed being able to make him fidget and trip over his words whenever she saw him. This happened only a few times a year when she was called back in on special assignment. Like just now.

Ryan barely wasted time with pleasantries before motioning the detective over to one of his monitors.

“Like I said, it’s 217. Gonna have to go pay a visit to his cabin, see what’s up. Have yet to verify how many kids he had, or still has, running around out there. Surveillance we were supposed to have around the place has been disabled for some reason. But we’ve been to the other residence. Got the girl that shot him.”

Sciarpa pursed her lips. Her eyes widened with interest. “She the one he kept all these years?”

“Yeah, she failed out of his training pretty early on, but he still held on to her.” Ryan paused, then asked, “Is that even allowed?”

Sciarpa shrugged. “Couldn’t say. Hardly ever happens. Suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

“The team we sent also picked up a boy.”

“Non-lethal force?” The detective raised a thin brow.

Ryan’s eyes were glued to his monitor. “I can hear the sarcasm just dripping out of that remark.”  They both knew the “non-lethal force” order was at best a suggestion and a formality. “Team blew the house clean away.”

He pulled up the recording for her. Sciarpa eyed it critically.

“This is the footage of him, then?  The natural?”  

“Yeah.”

“Well just because that kid---“

Ryan wasn’t in the mood for discussions. He reined his temper in. “Don’t start with me, Carmen San Diego. We have a job to do. And you sure took your sweet time coming out here, so we need to move.”

As Ryan understood, Carmen San Diego was a diabolical mastermind in a kid’s program years and years ago, when kids and broadcasting companies still went for that sort of thing. He didn’t really know much about her except that she was terribly clever and insisted on committing her diabolical deeds in a big red trench coat and heels. Ryan liked to think the nickname captured  his aggravation at the fact that Sciarpa always seemed to look much too dressed up for work.

She seemed not to notice. “What’s all this ‘we’ business? You can’t go leaving your post, solider. Stick to your guns, burn the midnight oil and all that.”

“Anyone ever tell you not to mix your metaphors?” He hunched over his workstation. “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to show you over here. Go to Cohen’s office; he’ll brief you.”

“Already been, and what do you suppose he said? That you get the rest of the night off to come and have a ride with me in the cop car.”

“Now why the hell would he say that?” Ryan rubbed his forehead.

“Beats me, but I wouldn’t argue. If all your trainers keep dying out on you, there won’t be much else left for you to watch. C’mon, Cohen says he’s got someone to take over for you. Let’s go.”

As Ryan numbly gathered his things, he considered ditching Sciarpa and just going home to bed. Damn, he hated the night shift. But if his supervisor Cohen really had specially picked him for this gig, there might be a bonus involved. Ryan doubted it was a dangerous assignment, even if it was strange.  He’d also been watching Hank for a long time. The prospect of seeing the man’s house and the remnants of his training operation up close piqued Ryan’s curiosity. With a resigned sigh, he quietly followed the detective out of the office.

==================================================

Penny noticed that the little boy had been placed on the same aircraft as her. One of the officers was trying to separate him from an oversized flashlight---it wasn’t going well.

Penny recognized the device as the one the kid had been carrying when he and Hank had emerged onto the porch of the house. For whatever reason, the agent hadn’t tried to take it away from him while they were on the ground.

Up until now, the child had been quiet and reserved. He’d shown little reaction to the sight of his father’s shredded body and his destroyed house. Now he was howling and clutching the flashlight to his chest. The only intelligible word that escaped him between his shrieks was “no!”

Finally, the agent gave up the fight. The boy ceased screaming immediately. After catching his breath, the man directed the two children to a small cabin in the back of the ship. This vessel was much larger than a typical helicopter, Penny thought, though she’d never seen one up close.

The man said nothing to Penny and the boy except the repeated assertion “It’s going to be all right.” When Penny finally found her voice, she grasped at the officer’s armored elbow and asked, “Where are we going? Where are you taking us, huh?”

He answered her more loudly than before. “It’s going to be all right.” The man shook her off before exiting and sealing the door to the room.

Penny slumped to the ground under a small window. The cabin was comfortable--stocked with some cushions, sleeping pallets, and a little food. Exhausted, Penny sought sleep for a few minutes, but only found herself able to toss about on the floor.  

She eventually sat up and studied the little boy, who was not asleep either. His face was haggard and he didn’t blink. He just glanced out the window as open fields began to turn into highways beneath them.

Penny scooted closer to him and warily held out her palm, offering a handshake.  She made sure to speak in a soft tone. “I’m Penny.”

The child’s face scrunched up as he took her hand, squeezed tightly, and pumped it up and down a few times. “I am Kai,” he murmured vaguely. He didn’t look at her.

Penny shifted around awkwardly on the floor after he pulled his hand away. The boy did likewise, curling his legs up so his knees reached his chin, then hugging himself tightly around the ribs.

“I’m—I’m real sorry about your pa,” Penny whispered.

It took Kai a long while to answer. “I do not know why they did that.” His voice shook. “I miss him a lot now.”

Penny was good at shaking hands, but not at putting her arms around anyone or offering any other form of comfort. Instead, she stuttered as she tried to begin several responses, each seeming more foolish than the first.  “Y-you don’t talk like most kids hereabouts. Where d’you go to school?”

Kai seemed not to hear her. He gaped at her awhile in mournful surprise. “You killed that man,” he said.

Penny choked. “Yeah, yeah I did. I think he was going to hurt you.” She paused. “Is there---is there anything he said to you to make you go with him?”

“He was going to take my baby sister. I did not want him to take my baby sister. But now she is dead, too.”

Penny opened her mouth to answer, but fell silent. Kai turned his back, pulled his knees up again and rested his cheek on top of them.

Penny did the same. Although she couldn’t hear it, she guessed that Kai had begun weeping. She stared out the window as the sound of the blades beat into her head and her own tears made splotches on the rolled- up cuffs of Hank’s overalls. Penny never cried unless somebody else did first.

She peered into the dark space ahead of her, trying to spot the moon. Instead, she saw the other helicopter veering away and bearing west. Before she finally let her eyes drift closed, Penny’s instinct was that she and Kai were speeding toward the city while the other whirring black shape was headed in the direction of her house.

4. Forced Veils

Resting his chin on his palm, Ryan Kesseler haphazardly scrolled down a list on his workstation. Names, locations, ages, success rates and other statistics flew past his eyes, a green circle next to each row. When he reached the bottom, he flicked the cursor to the top and began again. He was supposed to be rewriting his sorting algorithm (as the other watchers already had), but he had so few trainers to watch lately it wouldn’t help. After glancing around to confirm no supervisors were watching, he minimized the program and opened up a web browser. His preferred news site opened and headlines screamed at him in bold font: UCA RETRACTS NEGOTIATION OFFER, PM KETTERING WARN TERRORISTS OF “ANNIHILATION”, RIOTS KILL 30, HUNDREDS DETAINED. Ryan wondered if they were just rerunning the same stories with different headlines. Before he could click on a different page, his monitoring program threw an alert on the screen:

Trainer/Harvester 217: Deceased

Contacting supervisor

“Shit!” Ryan hissed at the screen. Seconds later a supervisor was at his station, leaning close enough for Ryan to smell the enormous man’s liberal use of cologne.

“Get sat-vis on him,” the man barked. He pressed a button on his headset, shouting “Two helicopter teams, harvester 217 residence and current location, dispatch channels 81, 82, 77. Nets authorized, use non-lethal force.” Other watchers leaned into the aisle to see the commotion. Ryan wished the supervisor would be more quiet. The satellite image opened on the screen: a house in blues and greens was visible, and 3 red outlines near it. One of them was very bright; the supervisor noticed it.

“That one there, the pink one. Get closer,” he said, stabbing the screen with a fat finger. Ryan zoomed on the figure, noting the steady, pulsing variation in the hue. The supervisor grinned, purring “We got a natural.”

===================================================

Penny stood motionless, one eye staring straight down the sight to where Hank had stood. His body lay on its side, a failing heart still pumping blood through a large chest wound. The boy slowly walked backwards up the stairs, hugging himself tightly. Second floor windows lit up, and Penny noticed her hand had begun to shake. She put the pistol back in her pocket, and motioned to the boy.

“Come on now, I ain’t gonna hurt you or nothin’. We gotta get out of here, now you come with me, alright?”

He continued backwards towards the porch, keeping his eyes fixed on her. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs from within the house. “Come on now boy, we have to go! Now!” she stammered, reaching for her pistol. The front door burst open, and a tall, bearded man crossed the porch in two steps, shotgun in hand. Penny grabbed her pistol, leaping sideways and cocking the hammer. Her foot caught on the ground, causing her to tumble onto her side. She brought the pistol up, aiming at the man’s chest when the air exploded with a fury of crosswinds and spotlights. She shielded her eyes and saw massive helicopters hovering some 30 feet of the ground in front of the house. The blinding light caught the gunman off guard, allowing her precious seconds to leap behind a bush next to the porch. The next second machine-gun fire tore across the porch and ground floor. Penny pressed her hands against her ears against the painful cacophony of helicopter blades and gunshots. When it stopped, she peered through the leaves at the house: then entire front wall had been destroyed by the bullets, and inside lay bloodied, tattered bodies dropped over the remains of furniture. The man with the shotgun was a pile of torn flesh and bone shards. Troops in thick black body armor jumped out of the helicopter, guns aimed at the house. A voice boomed from the airships:

“Come out with your hands raised! We will not shoot you! Come out with your hands raised, now!”

As Penny slowly rose from the bush, hands stretched above her head, she saw the boy walk out of the wrecked house, hands pointing to the sky. His face was expressionless, disinterested. A soldier lifted him up and turned back towards the awaiting airships, briefly motioning towards Penny. Two more soldiers walked towards her, guns lowered. She stood behind the bush, arms raised and terrified.

“Put your arms down, girl, it’s alright. You have to come with us,” said one of the men through a face mask. He reached over the shrub and picked her up. “Everything’s going to be alright, don’t worry. It’s going to be alright.” He put her over his shoulder, and they stepped into the open aircraft. She pulled her knees to her chest as the door closed and they lifted off into the night sky.

3. Houseguest

Hank resisted the urge to drop the screaming bundle in his arms and bolt. Stumbling footsteps fell on the cedar planks of the hallway, and he began to weigh his options. Window? Too high. Closet door? No way out. Through the doorway and down the stairs? Foolhardy if not fatal. His clumsiness had cost him dearly; he’d have to give up the job—that much was clear. Hank shakily determined that gunfire would be the quickest way to alert Penny. He placed the squalling infant back into its crib and peered into the hallway.

Outside, Penny had been squatting near the porch stairs and fighting to keep a steady line of thought. She gazed at the front entrance. Hank had told her roughly what to expect when he came through the door. Still, she’d begun trembling almost as soon as he’d disappeared into the cellar. She was fearful not for him or for the child he intended to spirit away, but for herself. Bullets and blood were no phobias of Penny’s, but knowledge was something else entirely. Gear upon gear had been turning in her brain and she figured that she was closing in on a new revelation about Hank’s behavior. Until now, her evidence against him had been readily-available but shadowy. Until now, the original daughter in Hank’s household had not considered her own upbringing as part of the equation.

 

Penny had never met her mother, but Hank always said she lived in the city, miles away. And that she kept a room in a shiny apartment building near a lake. He’d heard rumors that she’d died a few years back—-a boating accident. But he claimed to be uncertain about the truth of such gossip, given that newspapers were hard to come by in this district anymore. And even those were dubious at best. So as it was, Hank could never make up his mind about whether to tell Penny about her mother in the present or the past tense. Just like Penny could never make up her mind about whether to call him just “dad” or just “Hank.” Her mother’s name, Hank had said, was Edith.

Penny’s teeth dug at her lower lip as she tried to focus on the house once more. When she heard a muffled smash and a scream ring out from the second story, she began to brace herself for disaster. Penny curled her fists tight and willed herself back to the moment before the awful thought had struck: Who’s to say that you didn’t draw your first breaths in a house just like this?

 

No, Penelope. No further. She tried hard, but couldn’t check her imagination. The next logical conclusion took root and bloomed of its own accord. Shivering outside the broken farmhouse, Penny could now think of no reason why she mightn’t just be one of Hank’s stolen children too.

Hank was readying his weapon for fire as he glanced around the edge of the doorframe. The baby continued to howl, agitating him. Before he could nudge the nose of his rifle across the threshold, he noticed that a small white form had wandered into the hall in front of him. It must have trailed out of the bedroom he’d struggled to see from the staircase earlier. The figure rubbed its eyes and blinked at Hank. It was nothing more than a tiny boy in an oversized nightshirt.

The kid gestured frantically at him to keep quiet, and then scurried toward what Hank judged to be the parents’ bedroom. Baffled, Hank prepared to make a run for it, but was a second too late.

“What in hellfire—-?” a small but stealthy-looking man cried out, emerging from the door at the hallway’s end.

The boy blocked his path. “Papa, I came to get you. I woke up baby Shelby again. I am really sorry, Papa!”

The man, disoriented, simply repeated the phrase about hellfire.

The boy shifted about awkwardly while he talked. “Well, you see, I was thirsty and I could not sleep. So I wanted to get some water but first I went into Shelby’s room to see if she was sleeping good like you wanted her to. It was really dark, so then I tried to turn on the lamp but I knocked it over and then she woke up. I am really sorry, but Papa, can you put your gun away? Pleeease? It is scary.”

“Kai, you pullin’ my leg? You know if someone’s in here, you oughta say so right now. Ain’t nothin’ good comes of your tricks, you know that. Now stand aside, bud. I’m gonna go look in on your sister.”

As soon as Hank had realized the little waif was bluffing, he’d stolen into the closet in the baby’s room, his movements partially muffled by Shelby’s persistent shrieks. But after the father entered, Hank could hear the man’s rough breathing and his every footstep as he inspected the fallen lamp. Hank wagered he still carried a weapon.

After a few minutes, the infant’s noise still continued to permeate through the house. Like to split the roof wide open, was Hank’s analysis. But as much as he loathed the pain that was developing at the base of his cranium, he deemed that fortune was on his side for once. The addle-brained father, still groggy with sleep, would be more concerned with silencing the infant than with hunting all over the darkened house for an intruder.

Sure enough, the man eventually scooped up Shelby and carried her back toward his own room. Hank heard him tell Kai, “I’ll have your sissy come sleep in with me tonight. Be safer, ‘n might settle ‘er down a piece.” The man sighed. “You look like you gave yourself a fright, Kai. Gotta stop your wanderin’ ‘round at night like this. Go on back to bed.”

“But I am thirsty still…”

“Then go get you some damn water from the sink ‘n be done with it. Bring your flashlight next time and don’t do nothin’ foolish again.”

The door to the father’s bedroom thudded shut. Hank held his breath, wondering just what the hell this little fellow was up to. The boy moved noiselessly into the room before rapping lightly on the closet door. Hank opened it, ready to run. Kai gave his brandished rifle another wide-eyed look, then abruptly grasped Hank’s free hand. The boy’s other hand clutched a lit flashlight three sizes too big for him.

Taken aback, Hank blustered at the small, almost ghostly figure. “What’re you playin’ at, boy? I ain’t here for nothin’. You heard what your daddy said. Nothin’ foolish, now. Just let me pass. You’d do best to stay quiet ‘n out of my way.”

He couldn’t bring himself to knock the kid out, but moved to cover his mouth in case Kai had second thoughts about ratting on him. Before Hank could extract himself from the child’s grip, however, Kai put a finger to his own lips and made an exaggerated shushing noise. Still clinging to Hank’s calloused palm, the boy silently led him downstairs.

Hank’s confusion was reaching its peak. Out of desperation at the strange circumstances and the threat of returning home empty-handed, he decided that he could claim this strange boy instead of the infant sister. The kid looked about six, seven at the oldest. This was old. Much too old. But Hank needed a captive and his mind had already seized upon the possibility.

To Hank’s surprise, Kai didn’t direct him toward the kitchen for a drink of water once they had reached the first floor. Instead, he pushed through the front door and onto the porch as Hank intended. He was still holding Hank’s hand.

Penny was there to see the pair slip through the doorway. One day years from now, she would sit in a clean cool room on an upper floor of a building somewhere in the city. There, people would ask her what had driven her to do what she did next. She would answer that she couldn’t rightly tell. Only that she had been expecting trouble to come through the door, expecting that she would have to use her pistol quick and wisely. She would say her reflexes had leapt ahead of her. What her answer would not include, however, were the thoughts that had directly preceded the incident: the lingering notion that Hank had snatched her from another family under the same design he was using that night. And the fact that when she’d seen Hank emerge onto the porch with the little boy in tow, her imagination had replaced the child’s face with her own.

Something was wrong, Penny could see. This was no infant. She hadn’t prepared for this at all.

All in one instant, she imagined scores of heinous threats or sugary lies Hank could’ve spun to coax the child away from his family, his safety, his warm bed. She could feel bile rising in her throat. No, it shouldn’t happen like this.

She couldn’t tell whether she’d thought it before or after her trigger finger had squeezed, and Hank had fallen in a heap at the foot of the porch stairs.

2. Error

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

Hank swore to himself quietly in the dark. The cellar door had been left carelessly unlocked, and he had taken every precaution in opening it slowly so that the heavily rusted hinges did not creak. He carefully placed every step on the right edge of each ancient, cracked wooden step so as to limit their groaning. All his meticulous care did not account for the errant pail placed at the bottom, which clattered deafeningly in the close, dank basement.

He had instructed Penny to walk around to the front door; he would try to leave that way when the time came. The first lights to go out would be the child’s room, and that window was situated right above the front porch. It was likely that the stairs led directly to this room. Walking up, grabbing the child and running back down the stairs and out the door would be one of the simpler jobs he had done. “If only they were all this easy”, he complained mentally to himself.

Despite his large frame, Hank moved with feline grace. The moonlight provided just enough light to see the outlines of objects littering the floor: old boxes of jars, buckets of sawdust, scattered pieces of machinery. He navigated the debris to the stairs, and after testing the first few for noise, quickly climbed up into the kitchen, tightly gripping his rifle.

Penny shifted her legs beneath her. While she understood having two people in the house would only complicate matters, she still hated squatting in a bush while Hank did the fun part. She nervously felt for the revolver holstered in her pocket. There were no sounds from inside the old house, but that could change any second. She’d no qualms about shooting someone, but that would hardly be the hardest part of her job. This was a big house, and possibly a big family. And there were only two of them.

Hank moved through the house towards the ground floor stairs. “No moonlight here,” he mused. “Bastards got some thick curtains.” Ascending to the top floor of the house, he noted the first sign of difficulty. The child’s room was at the top of the floor as he thought, but the door was closed. The adjacent room had two older children in it, and had no door. The next room down the hallway was also door-less, and he could barely make out at least one bed. At the end of the hallway, another closed door, which he assumed was the parents’ room.

He sidled along the wall across the landing to the closed door, and grasped the knob between his thumb and forefinger, very lightly turning it. The door opened soundlessly into a room. Besides the crib, there was no indication that this was a room for a baby: a dresser was placed by the door, and a nonfunctional clock hung on the wall. In spite of himself, Hank smiled at the thought of a baby needing a dresser. He leaned his rifle against the dresser and leaned over the crib, peering at the sleeping child. “Got ‘im all wrapped up and ready to go for me,” he thought. Slowly, gingerly, he pushed his hands under the baby and lifted it up. He cradled it in his arms, making sure it was fully supported.

As Hank turned to leave, the child’s blanket caught on a lamp. It smashed on the floor; the noise waking the baby. As its piercing cried grew in intensity, Hank heard a door opening, voices, and the metallic click of a weapon. He reached for his rifle, his hands shaking.

“Shit,” he thought.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.”