I split my mind among the homeless group. They’ve seen her; the crying was annoying to some, reminded others of long-missed children, others were indifferent. But none gave her up—
screw the police
, is the universal thought.
Where? Where is she? I pluck the image of the building she was in last night from their minds. I can almost hear Branden’s first terrified cries of life in their memories. I skim to the building, but she isn’t there. The cops are spread out in a line, pushing through—they have the area surrounded.
I quest through the other buildings in huge gulps, looking for human thought, human life.
Building one: Empty.
Building two: Two homeless.
Building three: One person.
Building four: Empty.
Building five: One sleeping, exhausted, with another.
There
.
Sumiko is sleeping with Branden on her chest. She’s on the second floor, in an office of some kind, laid out on a soft black fabric couch. Branden sleeps with his ear to her chest, listening to her heartbeat. He’s confused: the sound is distant, quieter than it once was, but he’s comforted by its familiarity.
Human thoughts enter the building, one floor below: the police.
Sumiko, you must wake
, I say into her mind.
Her eyes fly open. She cradles Branden gingerly, while sitting up quickly and surveying the room. She almost speaks.
Be quiet
, I say.
The police are on the first floor, they are sweeping the area. Outside this office there is a hallway that hugs the perimeter of the building. It leads to a stairway. Go there.
Who are you
? she asks.
A half-second pause.
Karon
. It’s out before I can stop myself.
Now, go
!
She’s up and moving, too bewildered not to listen. Her thoughts a confusing mess of Karon, a voice in her head that does not sound like Karon, safety, and an intense worry of Branden crying and giving them away. She moves swiftly but gingerly, still recovering from giving birth. The bleeding has stopped, but pain is ever present, the threat of reopening wounds constant. But for Branden, she would endure.
I split my mind and enter Branden. It’s a mash of stimuli, confusing, frightening. I do what I can to calm him. I replicate Sumiko’s heartbeat, dampen the other stimuli. It works, but my head starts to ache from too much splitting.
Sumiko arrives at the stairwell.
Go up two flights of stairs
.
She starts climbing.
The police on the first floor are bored as they wait for the crawlers to catch up. If they do catch this mother, they won’t get any credit; that’ll go the lead Detective or the crawlers, as if foot soldiers had no place anymore.
Crawlers
? I split again and let myself go deeper into one the policeman downstairs.
Lee Delera. A man numb to Sumiko’s plight, a man pulled along by the forces of the world around him. Two hours and twelve minutes until his shift was over. Then he could meet up with his friends and immerse themselves in the virtual reality world of Kadara.
The crawlers arrive, four of them. They came up to Lee’s knee, two spheroid balls stacked on top of one another with the top most ball smaller than the bottom one. Four spindly, whip-like legs descended down from the bottom ball, each moving so rapidly as to give the impression of mechanical spiders.
They stop in front of Lee, awaiting his orders. Lee waves them away. The four shoot off, their legs a blur. Two hours and ten minutes until his shift is over.
Sumiko steps off onto the fourth floor, a factory floor, unsure where to go next.
Karon
?
Where should I
—
There’s no time, those crawlers are coming. The fourth floor is a manufacturing plant of some kind. There’s heavy machinery spread over the loft-like space with no interior walls.
Hide in the machinery, as far as you can work yourself into it.
But Branden
, she thinks.
Hurry! They’re coming. I’ll keep Branden calm
.
Thankfully, she listens. She runs to the nearest machine. An oven maybe? A printing press of some kind? Either way it has an entrance that she wiggles into, trying to work herself as far into it as possible. The fear of discovery overwhelms any fear of claustrophobia. She tenderly held Branden close and tries not to jostle him too much.
I try to recall the happiest feelings of my life. Those periods in which I was most content. Oddly, I remember my own mother. I can’t recall what she looks like, but I remember her smell, the sharp floral scent. It’s the first time I ascribe the scent to her, but know it to be true. I remember wearing pajamas, the one-piece kind with the footies. I remember stuffed animals; I remember her reading, but not her voice. And now I remember not having to be worried. That’s what I send to Branden: warmth, comfort, security.
Sumiko’s breath is hot in the confined space, humid. She chews her lips in worry.
A door creaks open, skittling sounds shuffle over the floor. A crawler is here. Sumiko’s heart pounds; her left breast hurts—she needs to feed. I float above the machine Sumiko’s in and observe the crawler.
It’s fast, frighteningly fast. And it’s dipping into the machines.
Oh, God. It’s going to find her. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
Karon, what’s happening
?
Karon
?
I can’t respond. I can’t save her. Machines are immune to Watchers, they have no thought patterns.
The skittling sound grows closer.
Karon
!
I flee the building and dive myself into the first policeman I find. I hit him so hard all sense of his self is lost. I rip the communicator from his wrist and say in a voice completely foreign to me, “I found her! She’s over here—” Where is over here? “—She’s on the run, I’m in pursuit!” I start running and damn near fall. This guy is tall, his legs are much longer than I’m used to.
“Stay in pursuit, Officer Cearley,” his/my communicator squawked. “We’re vectoring to your position.”
I keep Officer Cearley running and pull back a little. The poor guy is lost, in shock. I’ve done something abhorrent, something so looked down upon, so reviled, I can feel myself wanting to throw up. But I keep him running.
I come back to Sumiko. The skittling sound is gone. Officer Delera, his partner and four crawlers are exiting the building, heading in the direction of Officer Cearley.
Sumiko, we have to move. I’ve called them away, but
—
Slip
.
***
My eyes open to a female with a hawkish nose that turns up at the tip standing over me. I feel like I should know her.
She says, “Watcher Emre, welcome back. Tell me, how did it go?”
Watcher Emre? I fight panic down. Where is Branden? My chest rises and falls, my breasts are flat, that’s not right, is it? No, it’s not. I am a Watcher. I’m a man. I am Emre.
Oh, shit. I went too deep.
“Watcher Emre?” Another woman with short raven hair comes to stand next to her.
They’re familiar, but I can’t place them. Damn, my head hurts. I give a great sigh that’s not acting at all. “My head …”
Hawk Nose says, “Watcher Emre, report.”
I wave my hand in genuine confusion. I’m not sure what’s going on. I catch Hawk Nose sharing a look with Raven Hair. She says, “What is your name?”
I can’t answer.
“What is the last thing you remember?”
“I— I—”
“The last thing you remember!”
“The crawlers, they were leaving. Following after Cearley. Sumiko—”
“Sumiko?” Hawk Nose exchanges a surprised look with Raven Hair.
“You went to Evaga?”
“Yes.”
“You were supposed to go to Strata.”
“I did.”
“Did Strata know about the events on Evaga?”
“No.”
“How long were you there?”
“An hour.” Maybe?
“How many people did you Watch?”
“Thousands.”
“And none knew of the events of Evaga?”
“No.”
“What is the key to making the consciousness projectors work?”
“I— I don’t know.” Should I know? I don’t feel like I ever did. Should they know?
Polston. That’s her name. And Delphine. Occupiers, enemies.
She asks more questions rapid fire about my time on Strata and Evaga. I answer. She doesn’t slip in anymore questions directly about the Watch, but I’m wary. It’s slowly starting to come back to me.
The Regency is here to steal the projectors. The DNA profiling law was a convenient cover. It’s really not all that surprising, but still frightening when confronted with it.
Through it all I can’t stop worrying about Branden and Sumiko. I had called off the crawlers, given them opportunity. Are they okay?
“Watcher Emre, you are dismissed until thirteen hundred tomorrow,” Councilor Polston says.
I stand and waver a little unevenly. My legs are shorter than I remember. “As you wish.”
I leave and wander the hallways, putting my thoughts in order. After the moist air of Strata and the clutter of the manufacturing floor in Evaga, the hallways are empty, barren: lifeless.
Sumiko’s a survivor. She made it to that building without being caught. She was smart enough to dump her vehicle. I was able to give her a clear enough picture of what was happening, wasn’t I? I wander in these thoughts for … some time, I’m not sure how long exactly.
Eventually, Renya smoothly saddles up next to me. “Easy, Emre.”
Easy
? I look at her quizzically.
“You’re chewin’ your lip off.”
I stop, wondering where I picked up that habit.
“Dinner tomorrow?” Renya asks me, holding her hands together—a signal.
I clasp my hands behind me to show I acknowledge. “Sure, what are we having?”
“Split-pea soup, but there’s no Rye bread. It’s still in transport, and there’s concern it may have spoiled.”
“Damn, I’ve been looking forward to Rye bread.”
“I know,” she says sincerely, with something akin to compassion in her eyes. “See you then?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Renya breaks away as swiftly as she came.
Interesting. Joslyn’s back and wants to meet tomorrow. As punishment once for some shenanigans I did, all she allowed me to eat for a month was split-pea soup. Plus, the Regency hasn’t supplied the data on our origins (the “Rye bread”) yet and the Directorate thinks it’s tainted and doesn’t want us to look at it.
I continue to wander the hallways for a bit, pondering these developments before heading to bed.
I’M BACK
in the conference room where we met Ambassador Elkier, but it’s shorter than normal and I’m in a consciousness projector. The viewing port looks out over the Old Industrial part of New Florence on Evaga.
An impossibility. A dream.
I find a clock: 14:32. I look away and study the room: the oval table, the brown leather chairs are all the same. But the projector I’m in is made of wood, it smells spicy and floral, moist, alive. It reminds me of home. I look back at the clock: 10:12.
Definitely a dream.
I school my mind. This is the trickiest part, when you first realize you’re dreaming. If the conscious mind, awakened at this realization, rejects too strongly the setting from the subconscious, the dreamer will wake.
Lucid dreaming is almost a byproduct of our training. Our minds are trained to accept bizarre inputs, thoughts of thousands of individuals, processing their senses as if our own. I feel my conscious mind slide into the passenger seat, able to process and still give direction, but willing to go where the subconscious is going to take it.
I stand and consider what to do. I feel the need to talk to someone, which means finding another person. But do I go deeper into the station or through the window to Evaga? The station or Evaga?
It’s not possible to engage Sumiko from a dream.
Sumiko. The thought is like molasses: heavy, difficult. Going through the window would wake me.
I leave the conference room and go deeper into the station. That’s not quite right. I don’t move—I move the station around me. It slides by on command, an odd mixture of polished black tiles and Evaga concrete with some street trash from Strata.
The personnel quarters. I come to a door with an embossed “W” on the door. Joslyn’s room. I haven’t yet seen another soul, but somehow I know.
I enter.
She sits on her bed eating a stir-fry dish, her heavy glass table from the sitting room set in front of her as if she were eating at a restaurant. She’s dressed as she always is in loose fitting black pants and off-white shirt. She looks up as I enter.