Broken Mirror (26 page)

“I found a MeshCash machine,” she said. “We’ll need lots of bills. Some of the places we’re going to pass through aren’t exactly credit friendly.”

An itching sensation spread from her elbow to her fingers. She scratched her forearm and pushed the thought of stimsmoke out of her mind.

Victor hung his head. “You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

Elena moved closer and intercepted his gaze. “You’re not getting rid of me. I’m in this. All the way.”

“I’m not sure anyone can help.” His shoulders sloped toward the ground.

“Well, I’m sure. Come on.”

They got in the car and said nothing more. She wanted to ease his mind, but what could she say except “Perk up” and other inanities? His troubles were real and not solvable through idle talk and false positivity. Neither was her deception helping. So she kept silent.

Victor navigated through town to back roads leading to the foothills. They stopped in the middle of nowhere and ate the now cold sandwiches
—
bacon, eggs, and cheese on country bread. She could tell by the way he listlessly nibbled his sandwich that something was bothering him.

They drove on. Trees from an orchard flashed by. Elena’s itching returned. She rubbed her thumb down the length of her arm, not using her nail, not wanting to tear the skin, knowing she’d have to scratch again and again, and wouldn’t feel relief for days.

Victor started squirming. “Last night, Granfa Jeff . . . I didn’t cover him up. I just left him there exposed!” He banged his hands on the steering disk. “It’s going to be all over the Mesh! Everyone’s going to think
—
”

“Shh.” She realized he’d been stewing on this for the better part of an hour before finally erupting. That frightened her.

A vista of grassy hills—still green from winter rains
—
and oak trees greeted them when they rounded a bend.

“Ozie said—”

“Who’s Ozie?” she asked.

“Someone I met at university. We were friends. Until he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” She hoped her questions were distracting him from his churn of feelings.

Victor explained, “Yeah, right in the middle of the semester. Then the herbalist gave me his
—
”

“Ah, the one you said was kidnapped?” She looked at him. It was unbelievable that someone with his condition would experiment with drugs. Though she wasn’t one to talk. What would he say if he knew she was recovering from stimsmoke addiction? The withdrawal was so bad it was still making her skin crawl. She ran her nails down her arm. The momentary relief was worth the next round of itching it provoked. “Herbs, huh? That explains why you lost control,” she said.

Victor sat a little taller. “They’re helping me.”

“Are you sure? It doesn’t look like it to me.”

“If I could control it completely, it wouldn’t be a disorder,” he snapped. “They
are
helping. I just forgot to dose this morning.”

He slowed to a stop in the middle of the empty road and dug into his bag. His hand came up with two glass vials, which he tipped into his mouth and swallowed, grimacing.

There’s a time when we’ll talk about that, she thought, but not now, not while he’s on edge.

He resumed driving. His actions were stiff, like an automaton running a program. She’d always admired him for doing his best despite being a second-class citizen
—
she would’ve eaten a bucket of pills long ago
—
but maybe SeCa society’s restraints were finally wearing him down.

Victor said, “I wish I knew how people know that I have MRS. And why they react the way they do.”

“It’s not you. Not entirely. People are wound tight here. Any little thing sets them off. It’s funny, in Texas, even when their farms are being burned and their families ransomed off, people are more laid-back. I mean, they’re mad and scared, but they don’t let it get to them.”

“But what is it about me?”

“I don’t know, Victor,” Elena admitted. “It’s something in the way you look at people. It feels
—
I don’t know
—
charged somehow.”

“Charged?”

“Forget I said anything.”

She ran a nail down her arm and felt a tingling shiver in its wake. Being near Victor again felt like quenching a thirst and having hot air blasted over her at the same time: a bittersweet unpleasantness that she had missed desperately because watching him struggle made her feel more alive.

“So what’s the plan to get us across the border?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Victor’s voice sounded flat and distant. She knew there was a battle being waged inside him to maintain equilibrium, even though there was no sign of it on his face. His mind was a minefield that never got swept. She had to tread more carefully if they were going to get through this.

Victor continued, “Ozie told me he’d figure out a way. In the meantime, we’re supposed to wait somewhere outside Truckee.”

“For how long?” she asked.

Victor shrugged. “A couple days?”

“It’s a house, right? I didn’t buy any camping gear.” She waved toward the bags at the rear of the car.

“I don’t actually know. Ozie’s tight-lipped.”

Elena rubbed the numb spot on her upper ear. The stimsmoke damage was probably permanent. She should have asked the clinic staff in New Venice whether there was a treatment for missing sensation.

Morning sunlight had chased away the ground fog. Its beams streamed through the windows of the car. Heat rose from the dark plastic dashboard and the clipped velour fabric covering the car seats. She cracked the window. Dewy, cool, and grimy air rushed in.

Elena wedged her thumbnail between two teeth. A sliver of pork fat, the last remains of her breakfast sandwich, burrowed deeper, hiding from her probing nail. “Who do you think those thugs were that came looking for you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at them. It was dark. I think maybe they’ve been following me since my reclassification appointment.” His voice had regained its vibrancy. “I thought they might be the ones who are supposed to take me to the ranch, but
—
”

“Maybe you’re right.” Elena said, relaxing into her seat. He didn’t know about them. That was good. He wouldn’t be happy to know she was keeping secrets.

Her fingernail freed the sliver of fat. It slipped behind her teeth and down her throat. She watched Victor closely. His gaze moved in a cycle between the road and his mirrors.

Elena scratched her arm again, this time digging her nails in, feeling a tingle throughout her body, an aftereffect that still hadn’t faded weeks after her last high. “You know what? We need a word for what we’re doing. What is it? An excursion? An exodus? An expulsion?”

“An exorcism. I’m leading the bad spirits out of SeCa.”

Elena wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“People can change,” he said.

The look he gave her was impossible to read. She felt as if he were studying her, and a shiver ran across her arms. She shifted toward the window. The wind buffeted her hair. She scooped the strands into a ponytail.

Victor said, “In a normal life, we could have worked together, maybe at BioScan.”

The image of a gleaming laboratory at the SeCa National University came to mind
—
a proper research facility with the latest instruments, a functioning MeshLine, and experts in the most advanced biological and medical techniques. Who wouldn’t want to work in that kind of environment? Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple: she had five years of going down the wrong track to make up for. And some mistakes couldn’t be undone. Although, now that she was clean, she had more options.

“You always said you wanted to be an astronomer,” she said. “Do you like computational biology more now?”

He said, “Biology is fine, but if I was normal, I don’t think I’d settle for it. The universe is almost big enough for me,” he joked, bringing up their old silly banter.

“Are you in love with the stars?” she asked.

“Stars are sexy,” he said.

Elena giggled. “Stars are not sexy,” she said. “Cells are sexy. Astronomers grow up to be sad old hermits and spinsters. Biologists pump out loads of babies.”

He giggled and nodded. Elena smiled. He was such a strange bird, so difficult to pin down. His mood swings were the size of the solar system, much worse than when he was younger. She had to figure out what was really going on with him.

“How did you know your granfa was poisoned?” she asked.

He paused before replying, and she wondered how far he trusted her. “He had a hidden lab room at Oak Knoll. There was an image, a kind of photograph that showed he’d been exposed to alpha particles.”

“Yes, but you said you knew he was murdered at the funeral. I was there, remember?”

His eyes flicked across the landscape. “I didn’t
know
that he was murdered. It was just a feeling.”

She shifted toward him. Somehow despite his condition, he’d seen the truth when no one else had. How? “But you were right. It’s strange, don’t you think?”

Victor smirked. “I’ve been called worse.”

“That’s not what I meant. Like your dreams
—
”

Victor’s hands tensed on the steering disk. “We’re not going to talk about those.”

Elena shifted back toward the window and crossed her arms. She’d get him to open up eventually. “Fine,” she said. “What about your family? Are you going to call them? Do they know you’re leaving?”

Victor leaned forward, readjusting the position of his butt on the seat. The car maintained a steady speed throughout. “The more people who know where I am . . .”

“The more they can help you,” she said.

“Or the more the information could leak out, and whoever’s following me can track me down. Like Karine, my boss. I don’t think I can trust her.”

“Why not?” Elena asked. Victor’s trust seemed like a fickle thing
—
freely given to some people and locked away from others. It would help if she knew how he decided between the two.

“Something Ozie said about her. Maybe he’s being paranoid. I can’t figure her out. Sometimes she’s supportive, and other times I think she wants to get me locked up.”

Elena smiled to herself. “It sounds like she has a crush on you.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“That’s what women do when we can’t get the man we want. We flirt. We criticize. We murder. Trust me, she’s crazy for you.” She should be cautioning him against getting involved with his boss, but instead she felt happy that someone felt fond toward him.

Victor said, “I don’t see how she could be,” as he squirmed. Elena suppressed a grin.

She looked out the window and saw rows of dried-up orchards. One field was scorched; the burnt trees looked like black figures lined up in rows. Her good feelings drained away. The devastation reminded her of Texas, and she wondered whether she would ever descend to such savagery again. One murder was already too many.

What freedom do any of us have? Our prison surrounds us wherever we go. Our choices are only illusions. Don’t ask me to sympathize with Broken Mirrors. They’re still human. That’s the most damning thing of all.

—Interview with Mía Barrias in
Five Years After Carmichael
(1976)

Elena gagged. The Corp’s wafting body scent, a rotten fruit and acetone stench, permeated the Amarillo Cattle Company’s feed warehouse, a burnt-out husk on the outskirts of town. A single lightstrip hung limply from charred ceiling beams. The concrete floor was pocked and stained by decades of blood, filth, and meat.

Synthleather straps stretched around the prisoner’s bulging thighs and arms. He refused to talk. His swollen limbs and tank-like torso indicated massive steroid use, as did the acne spreading down his face and neck. He had sandy hair, buck teeth, narrow shoulders, a bulbous chest, and limbs that seemed tumorous on such a small frame. He was a smirking, overmuscled kid who hadn’t yet realized how much trouble he was in.

Tonight, Xavi, the Amarillo Puro’s chief, had ordered Elena to accompany them. They had instructions to find out why the trade truce with the Corps, in effect since before Elena joined the Puros the first time, had been canceled, and to do so by any means necessary.

Shadows clustered thickly around Elena and her fellow Puros, Chico and Davinth, while they questioned the tied-up Corp. Folks who didn’t know the Puros probably thought they were hick farmers with political leanings. If so, they knew shit. The Puros were a family dedicated to principles of loyalty, rootedness, and, above all, purity. The Corp should have feared them more.

Elena almost gagged at the smell the Corp gave off. She made a retching sound and said, “He looks like an inflatable dummy.”

Chico, the Puro in charge of this particular job, laughed. “He’s a juicer. What did you expect?”

Davinth, the Puro’s most junior member, asked, “Been ragin’ for a while now, haven’t ye, tosser?”

Davinth had made the journey from Cardiff in the Welsh Protectorate to the middle-of-nowhere Republic of Texas and had become a drug-free zealot like the rest of the Puros. He was a dim bulb, always ready to blindly follow along, but at least he’d never figure out that Elena was still dosing.

She worried about Chico though. He was wild, always looking for ways to impress Xavi, and perceptive enough that Elena avoided him when she was using.

Elena cursed herself. She hadn’t been strong enough to resist a few puffs. Hot saliva stung the back of her throat. She refused to cough. None of her Puro dickiemates could know that she’d sneaked stimsmoke in the other room while they were busy binding the Corp. Addiction was a leash tugging her down a path to ruin, and she couldn’t break free.

The Corp didn’t respond to any of their taunts. He stared at the walls and ceiling, ignoring them. If he wouldn’t talk, this was going to be a long, difficult night.

“Let’s get on with it,” Elena said.

Chico shredded the Corp’s shirt with a pop-out blade and started yanking a strip of sandpaper across the young man’s nipple. The Corp, who was probably only a few years younger, didn’t scream, didn’t wince, and didn’t speak. Elena wished he would. The silence only encouraged Chico to get more creative. Elena looked into the Corp’s bloodshot eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch what was happening lower down.