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

“I’ll stay here with you, Daddy,” she says. She kisses him on the forehead, above his eyebrow. Her hand presses against his face, then pulls away. She gives him a little nod.

He places the barrel of the gun under his chin and fires.

Fahima waits for Alyssa to get up before she starts fajr, finding things to keep herself busy as the sun climbs in the window. By the time Alyssa’s out of bed, she’s lost the best light, the kind that stabs from the horizon rather than above it. In dawn light, Fahima can imagine a god waking somewhere in Brooklyn and lighting the sun like a first morning cigarette. Alyssa watches from the counter, holding her coffee mug in both hands, taking in the view. They’re both anxious about the apartment, both worried they’ll have to flee the country. When things happen, there will be a window between when it becomes necessary to leave and when it’s no longer possible. Every time they watch the news or go on the Internet, they add factors to this calculation. A young blond woman from the Kindred Network, one of Jefferson Hargrave’s more palatable heirs, has been making the rounds on legitimate media, suggesting federal property seizure of Resonant-owned buildings and businesses. On NightTalk, Lakshmi Rameswaram, who Fahima considered an ally as much for her status as a fellow brown person as for actual demonstrated sympathies, listens, intrigued, as the porcelain-faced bigot outlines her proposal. The Overton window is shifting faster than Fahima imagined it might.

A humans first group that claims Jefferson Hargrave as its patron saint marches on North Avenue in Chicago and is turned back by Chicago police. Some of the cops share cigarettes and bottled water with the Resonants who live there. Others look longingly at the protesters, wishing they could disobey orders and join in. New York City cops are in front of Bishop every day. It’s unclear whether they’re protecting the students or keeping them in. A freshman congressman from Wyoming introduces an internment bill in the House that passes by two votes. Lowery says it will die in the Senate, barely. There are rumors. People gone missing. Militia groups with money building makeshift prison camps in the middle of nowhere. Patrick insists that he hasn’t found anything, but he’s not exactly Miss Marple.

Is it time to run? Is running possible?

They shower together, making the mundane intimate and important. Fahima lets her hand dwell on Alyssa’s hip. She kisses her shoulder as Alyssa reaches for the conditioner. Excuses to touch. Alyssa talks about an operation scheduled that day, one she’s told Fahima about already. Fahima listens like it’s the first time.

“What about you?” Alyssa asks. “What’s on your schedule?” She asks as if Fahima might tell her, although she must know that Fahima has been stonewalling for weeks.

“Death rays,” Fahima says. “Death rays all day.”

Fahima packs up the notes she brought home last night and sits on the arm of the couch. She told Kimani nine, and it’s a quarter past. Alyssa is ready to leave, but neither of them has gone yet. One secret of long-term cohabitation is the thrill of having the apartment to yourself, even for a few minutes. Alyssa and Fahima are locked in a standoff, but Alyssa relents. She grabs her bag and has her hand on the doorknob when Fahima calls her back.

“Lys?”

“What’s up?”

“You know I don’t care that you’re not like me?” Fahima asks. “You know I couldn’t love you any more if you could read minds or lift boulders or whatever?”

“Of course,” says Alyssa. “And you know I’d love you even if you couldn’t—”

“I know,” Fahima says. Except it won’t be like that, she thinks. Alyssa waits for her to say something else or to explain what’s going on. Fahima nods and says, “Have a great day.”

“You, too,” Alyssa says.

Fahima calls Kimani, and the door appears immediately to take her to her lab.

“Can you make the door any bigger?” Fahima says as she drags a large box across the lab floor. Kimani obliges, and the door expands until it takes up most of the wall. Fahima planned this device in bite-size chunks, pieces she could carry. She knew she’d be doing this part herself.

“You’re cleaning all this up,” says Kimani, pushing an armchair against a wall to make more space. “You’re not leaving any of this in here.”

“You are standing in the way of progress,” Fahima says, grunting and nudging her aside. Slowly, the device takes shape, inscrutable to anyone but Fahima. Aesthetics have always been an afterthought. iPhones and sleek laptops, machines other people think of as beautiful, leave her cold. Give Fahima a steam engine with pistons jutting and boilers frothing. Give her the clicks and spinning wheels of a Turing Colossus, grinding the Nazi Enigma code into bits. Beauty is in function. The rest is a shell.

They break for lunch, pork belly banh mi from Num Pang in Union Square. Kimani’s favorite. Any food in the world at her fingertips and Kimani chooses sandwiches from down the block. Between bites, she asks Fahima again what the device is, but Fahima shakes her off. The last piece she assembles is the one with an obvious purpose. It’s a seat the rest of the machinery centers on. Anyone would assume that the apparatus feeds energy into it, an electric chair. They’d have it backward. The energy will come from the chair, from its occupant. Everything else is there to handle the energy when it comes.

Fahima goes into the Hive to find Patrick and Sarah. She puts out a call, pushing their names into the malleable substance of the place. Sarah answers first, followed by Patrick. They both look annoyed.

“This is a bad time,” Patrick says. “I’m meeting with Senator Lowery before the Senate vote.”

“How bad?” Fahima asks.

“He thinks it’ll come down to one vote,