The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

She knows Miquel isn’t there. She’s checked every day. She stands in the shimmering space of the Hive. People flit by her like ghosts. Black roses wreathe her feet. Carrie screams as loudly as she can, I’m coming for you. Ghosts stop and regard her before moving along. When she comes back to the bar, all the patrons look at her, sad-eyed, understanding. How much did she communicate? What did she send? She thinks about her scream packed with metadata, carrying an encoded story of the last few days.

A man walks into the bar. It takes Carrie a moment to recognize him. She met him only once, years ago in the hallway at Bishop. But his name’s been at the front of her brain the last few days. It was the last name written in Miquel’s appointment book before he disappeared. Avi Hirsch. No contact number. As he steps to the bar, Jonathan stands up straight, setting his shoulders back to look larger.

“I’m sorry, man,” he says. “We’re a Resonants-only establishment. I know that sounds harsh, but some of our customers—”

“I need to be here,” Avi says. There’s a nervous energy coming off him. He looks around the room like he’s being chased.

“It’s okay, Jon,” Carrie says. “I know him.”

“That’s great, Care Bear,” says Jonathan. He has annoying nicknames for everyone in their circle: All the Waylon. Miquel Mouse. Roll in the Hayden. “But I mean, is he your guest?”

“Sure,” she says. Jonathan relents. Carrie moves to the stool next to Avi. As she does, she sees the word floating over Thought Bubble’s head in crimson: Damp.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Avi says. “You have to leave.”

“That’s a funny thing for you to say,” says Carrie. Avi stops, sits up straight, and looks at her as if he’s seeing her for the first time.

“You went to school with my daughter, Emmeline,” he says. “I didn’t recognize you. You’re all grown up.”

“You met with my boyfriend the other day,” Carrie says. “Miquel Gray. You went to him for—”

“I want to talk to you about it,” Avi says. “But it’s a bad time right now. How about I stop by and see you tomorrow? We could meet for coffee.”

Carrie stares into his eyes. They’re rimmed with red, his pupils huge. “Are you high right now?”

“No.”

“You’re on Rez,” she says.

“It’s for work,” says Avi. “We can talk about it some other time.”

“How about we talk about it now?” Carrie says.

“You don’t understand,” Avi says. “It’s important that you not be here right now.”

A wineglass shatters. The woman reading her magazine looks dumbly at the shards on the ground. Thought Bubble turns toward the sound, and above his head the word crash flashes for a second and fizzles out. Carrie hears a low rumble build into a buzz. It feels like an electric toothbrush scrubbing the inside of her skull. Jonathan gives a pained gasp. He clutches his chest like he’s having a heart attack. The light there goes dark.

The next sound is a boot against the heavy wooden back door, the splintering rip as it tears off its hinges.

—

In the back of the van, under the green lights, Carrie holds Jonathan’s head in her lap. His breathing is labored, and his eyes are squeezed shut. Carrie tries not to look at his chest. His shirt dips into the spot where the light had been, a sinkhole. The couple on the date hug each other. He blubbers, and she tries to comfort him. Carrie wonders what will happen to them after this, whether this is the kind of experience that brings a new couple together or destroys them. Avi is calmer than he was in the bar. He’s taking everything in, observing.

“You knew,” she says.

“I need to see where they take you,” Avi says, not looking at her. “I can’t confirm anything until I see it.”

“Are you a fucking idiot?” Carrie says. “You need to tell them you’re a baseliner so they’ll let you out and you can get us help.”

“I will,” Avi says. “I just need to see it.”

After a twenty-minute drive, they’re loaded out at a warehouse off the 290. Carrie sees the lights of the United Center off to the east, which puts them halfway to Cicero. There are more men dressed like the ones who took them: dark blue suits, carrying devices that look like leaf blowers but emit that horrible buzz that apparently shuts down their abilities. The van was equipped with devices in each corner that did the same thing. They looked like the lighting rigs on the Vibration dance floor. On the sidewalk, there are times Carrie can’t hear the buzzing. The leaf blowers must send the sound in a stream. Sometimes she’s on the edge of it. She tries to slip down into invisibility, but it doesn’t work. It’s like picking up a fork with numb fingers. Jonathan is nodding off.

“Help me with him,” she whispers to Thought Bubble. He wraps his arm around Jonathan as they’re herded into a warehouse under a flood of green lights.

“What the fuck, Maxwell?” says one of the blue suits, standing by a heavy metal door. “I thought this was supposed to be a fucking bumper crop.”

“Big grab’s the raid on the Biograph, Smithson,” says Maxwell, the one who threw Carrie onto the floor of the bar and clipped plastic restraints around her wrists. “That tranny singer’s got a show.”

“That’s gonna burn us for big raids,” Smithson says. “Back to snatch and grabs. We should throw a net over the whole block and drag it.”

“We should plow through with ordnance, then go out for beers,” says Maxwell. He shoves the couple on the date in front of Smithson like he’s a justice of the peace at a shotgun wedding. Smithson looks through them, blank and mechanical.

“When you step through this door,” he says, “your abilities will temporarily return. Someone will be standing behind you. If you attempt to use your abilities in any way, he will shoot you in the