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

As it happens, he becomes younger, more childlike, and physically lighter, as if he’s equal parts memory and flesh, both burning away.

“Isidra Gonzalez,” Fahima says. “She did the fountain sculpture in the lobby. The fish things or whatever.”

Bishop nods and starts over to her. “Miss Gonzalez,” he says. Isidra turns around. When she sees Bishop, she stands at attention.

“Headmaster Bishop,” she says.

“Kevin is fine,” he says. “I was hoping you could help me with something.”

“Of course,” says Isidra. “Anything.” Fahima is glad Bishop won’t outlive his students’ reverence for him. He’ll die a saint.

“You’re a shaper, yes? A sculptor?” he asks. “If I gave you a piece of something, a lump, could you turn it into something better? Something beautiful?”

“Beautiful could be tough,” she says with a self-deprecating grin, “but I could try.”

“That’s all I ask,” Bishop says. He hunkers down on a patch of dead grass between sidewalk and street. He lays his hands flat on the ground. The tendons in his neck strain. A trickle of pink liquid runs from his nose, a mix of blood and something else, something unique to him. Fahima has an urge to reach out and wipe it away, a sample to analyze. The ground beneath his hands swells up like a bubble forming. A white milky substance seeps upward in thin tendrils that knit together to form a web, then a solid. It’s the size of a fire hydrant, the color of ivory with a shimmer that reminds Fahima of the Hive.

Bishop steps back and points at it. “Go ahead.”

Isidra puts her hand on the lump and pulls it back, smiling idiotically. “What is that?” she asks. “It feels amazing.”

“It is amazing,” Bishop says. “But unsightly. Make it look as beautiful as it feels.”

Isidra puts her hand back on the lump. She smiles as if a crowd’s applauding for her. The lump shifts, becomes fluid again. It draws upward into two points, like horns. The one on the left is slightly longer and thicker, and the asymmetry has an elegance Fahima likes. She wants to scrape off a piece, put it in a jar along with whatever runs out of Bishop’s nose, and retreat to her lab.

“How’s that?” Isidra asks.

“That’s excellent, Ms. Gonzalez,” Bishop says. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

She puts her hands in her pockets and smiles. She’s straining not to touch the thing again.

“What is that stuff?” Fahima asks as she and Bishop walk away.

“That’s what the Source looks like when you force it into the real world. It’s a signal booster. It’ll make everyone here stronger. Better.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” Bishop says. He lowers his little round glasses and winks at her like he’s thirty years younger and not dying. Then he returns to his ditch.

Fahima goes back to the house where they first arrived and finds Ji Yeon filling out requisition orders for more food.

“Hey, can I ask you something that might be insulting?” Fahima says.

“Yeah, shoot,” says Ji Yeon without looking up.

“How much of what’s happened here was intentional? How much of this did you plan for?”

Ji Yeon looks at her like she’s an utter idiot.

“All of it.”

She hands off the forms to one of the other kids, who runs them off to wherever they need to go.

“I mean, the National Guard was an unexpected bonus,” says Ji Yeon, “but everything else. Look, you’re like forty, right?”

“I’m thirty-two,” Fahima says.

Ji Yeon waves this away as if the numbers are equivalent. “Who’s your Rosa Parks?”

“What?”

“You grew up with the Rosa Parks who was a tired old lady who wanted to sit down, right? Only that wasn’t her. Rosa Parks was a trained activist. She made a calculated decision that day.”

“And that’s you?”

Ji Yeon shrugs as someone hands her another clipboard.

“I don’t want to tell you how to run things,” Fahima says.

“Yes, you do,” says Ji Yeon. “You’re dying to. Go on, try.”

Fahima is struck silent for a minute. She’s used to dealing with teenagers she has structural authority over.

“There are better ways to put Bishop to use,” Fahima says. “I know you’re struggling to keep the pantry full. If you put him in front of the camera—”

“Then the whole thing is about him,” Ji Yeon says. “Everything we’ve done gets folded into his message.”

“It’s not a bad message,” says Fahima.

“Love thy neighbor and forgive thine enemies?” Ji Yeon says. “My parents brought me up Baptist. I got enough of that bullshit to last me a lifetime.”

“There’s more to him than that.”

“I know the whole thing,” says Ji Yeon. “They came to our house and did the sales pitch. He’s like the original, right? The first Resonant? Doesn’t mean shit to me. All it means is he had half a century or whatever to make a change and he only got us this far.”

“How far do you think we should go?” Fahima asks.

“Stars, kid,” Ji Yeon says. “We should be in the stars.”

—

After their third day, Fahima walks the streets. Her arms hang off her shoulders like dead weight. The streets are empty, and the streetlights are out. The Guard cut the electricity a week ago. Fahima told Ji Yeon she could build converters so some of the energy users could power the enclave’s whole grid, but Ji Yeon said it wasn’t a priority. They had clusters of generators at the makeshift hospital and at a couple houses that served as hostels and charging stations. The moon is full and gives great light when the clouds aren’t blocking it. Fahima walks the perimeter, along the edge of the barricade. A young man weaves two-by-fours into the structure. The beams are as pliant as cooked pasta in his hands. They corkscrew into holes in the barricade. Through the gaps, Fahima sees the National Guard’s klieg lights, the movements of soldiers, the dark metal skin of tanks.

After dark, committees move into living rooms to discuss media strategy, rations, governance. Every front door is open. Fahima can walk in, join any