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

maybe two,” says Patrick. “The majority leader is supposed to call it to the floor within the hour.”

“It’s time,” Fahima says.

Patrick considers this. “Give me twenty minutes,” he says, then fades out.

“You have some little plan?” Sarah asks.

“I have one big plan,” Fahima says.

“And the two of you are in cahoots?”

“I don’t know anything,” says Kimani.

“I’m telling you all now,” Fahima says. “This next step we take together.”

They leave the Hive, and Sarah enters through the door, Cortex along with her. Behind her, Fahima sees what she’ll always think of as Bishop’s library, although she supposes it’s Sarah’s now. One of the perks of the headmaster’s job.

“How’s Alyssa?” Sarah asks.

“She’s good,” Fahima says. “She’s doing a big surgery today. Very excited.”

“Good,” says Sarah.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Kimani says.

“I wanted to wait for Patrick,” Fahima says.

“Why do I think Patrick already knows?” Sarah asks.

“He knows some,” says Fahima. “I haven’t gotten into the technical parts.”

“Keep it like that,” Kimani says.

“So how are you fixing it?” Sarah asks. Cortex looks up at Fahima expectantly.

“We can’t win,” Fahima explains. “For all our abilities, for everything we can do. There are too many of them and not enough of us. More than that, there’s the clear line. Us and them. What we need is to blur that line. We need to make them into us. Turn our enemies into allies.” She looks at them to see if they get it, but they don’t. “I got the idea from drugs,” she adds.

“That fills me with confidence,” says Sarah.

“Rez,” Fahima says. “It gives users abilities for a little while. Nothing major, nothing world-breaking. And no Hive access. It pushes something latent in them to become actual. And if it can happen in a little way—”

“It can happen big,” Kimani says. She opens the door for Patrick to come through.

“What did I miss?” he says.

“Blurring the line between us and them,” says Sarah.

“I was also thinking about something you said,” Fahima tells Kimani. “That Bishop built the Hive to keep our numbers regulated. Like a bottleneck. The Hive lets a fraction of the energy we use through into the real world. If there were more coming through, there’d be more of us.”

“How many more?” Sarah asks.

Fahima shrugs. “We don’t know how narrow of a bottleneck Bishop built. What percentage he thought was acceptable. Only way to find out is to break it open.”

“And this does that?” Sarah asks, pointing at the chair and the devices that surround it.

“No,” says Fahima. “This lets someone do that. I’ve got one more person I have to grab.”

—

The dorm room is dark. Fahima hears Emmeline breathing into her pillow. There’s something cruel about asking anything of the girl two days after her mother died. Fahima should go talk to her, tell Emmeline she knows what it’s like to lose a parent. Or better, be there to listen. Instead, Fahima’s recruiting her, using her. She tells herself there’s no time left. She tells herself it has to be today, now.

“Hey, Em,” she says. Sheets rustle as Emmeline rolls over. The light from Kimani’s room shimmers in Emmeline’s teary eyes.

“Did you bring my dad?”

“No, it’s just me,” Fahima says. “We can go find your dad. I’ll help. There’s just something we need to do first.”

“The thing we’ve been working on?”

“The thing we’ve been working on.” The lessons have been tense, none of the light back-and-forth they used to have. Every time Fahima takes the bracelet off Emmeline, she can feel the girl’s body seize up. They both half expect Emmeline to explode.

“I don’t think I can,” Emmeline says.

“Em, the thing that happened to your mom and all those people?” says Fahima. “It puts all of us in trouble. We’re not talking days. Hours. If we’re going to do this, it needs to be now. Can you help me?”

There’s a pause. Fahima thinks it would be better to be thrown into cells, into camps. Better for all of them be rounded up and shipped off to a desert island than to do this to Emmeline, to force her to help when she is so hurt. Before she can rush back through the door and close it behind her, Emmeline’s hand slips into hers.

“Let’s go,” Emmeline says.

Sarah is on her feet the moment they step in. “No,” she says. “You are not putting one of my students in danger to—”

“I would never put her in any danger,” says Fahima. It’s a lie. What she means is I’d rather it was me, but it has to be her. What she means is If she gets hurt, there is nothing you can do to me that’d be worse than what I’ll do to myself.

“It’s okay,” says Emmeline. “I’m ready.”

She clambers up into the chair, which now seems outsized, a throne. She sets her hands on the armrests and leans her head back as Fahima affixes a series of wires. When she’s done, when Emmeline is part of the machine, Fahima turns to the rest of them, her audience.

“It’s going to look strange,” she says. “She’ll be here but not here. She may flicker.”

She turns back to the device.

“That’s it?” Sarah asks. “That’s all you’re going to tell us?”

“You’ll see,” says Fahima. The word isn’t right. They’ll feel. They’ll register. Sight will be a component but not the most salient one. You’ll know, she thinks.

Fahima gives Emmeline a nod. Emmeline takes off the bracelet and closes her eyes. She begins to flutter in and out of existence like the signal on an old television. Her eyes shoot open, icy blue, staring forward at something no one in the room can see. Emmeline is in the Hive and in the real world simultaneously. If Fahima is right, simultaneously is no longer a word that matters for Emmeline. Emmeline is everywhere at once.

“What do you see?” Fahima asks.

“I don’t…see,” Emmeline says. Her voice is curious, like a child exploring a new space. Space may not be a word that matters anymore either. The machines around her hum, soaking