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

through the Hive in the all-at-once way she used to. It doesn’t come as easily as it should, and that worries her. The Gates are built to exploit the transspatial properties of the Hive. If those properties are shifting, Fahima needs to know. She makes a mental note to ask Kimani if she’s noticed a difference. Fahima rises out of the Hive and manifests again back in the designated meeting spot.

Senator Lowery set this up, which Fahima imagines was no mean feat. None of the newly resonant members of Congress have made a public statement since the Pulse, even Senator Adkins, whose hands glowed blue on C-SPAN before they cut the feed. Fahima manifests in the middle of the collection of congressmen. All eyes are on her, not entirely because she’s the new arrival. Fahima is also the only woman here. It’s James Lowery and a gaggle of white men, mostly elderly, who regard her warily. Fahima has a flashback to her oral exams at MIT.

“Gentlemen, this is Fahima Deeb,” says Lowery, throwing Fahima an impatient glance. “Ms. Deeb is my liaison with the Bishop organization and has offered to advise us.” The group grumbles hello. Fahima looks around to see who she can recognize. She spots Stewart Quinn, the Senate minority leader, who has the poise and presence of a yacht club member even after the life-changing events of the last few days. Lowery says Quinn’s a passable reader but can’t project anything beyond garble. Keith Williams, whose career in tech Fahima paid some attention to before he threw it away for a California House seat. Of all of them, Williams was the one Fahima expected to go public, but he’s kept to the closet. And Frank Adkins, the sweaty little bigot who was in the middle of introducing an internment bill when the Pulse hit. Fahima’s seen pictures of him with his arm draped around the late Jefferson Hargrave. She’s heard him on the Kindred Network, offering defenses of violent anti-Resonant hate groups. She can’t help feeling smug satisfaction seeing him here, his Hivebody barely sustained, flickering in and out like a lightbulb on the fritz. I did this to you, you hateful fuck, she thinks. I made you into exactly what you’re afraid of.

“I know we come from both sides of the aisle,” says Lowery, “but I think it’s important that we discuss among ourselves what the new world might look like and the ways we might shape it at a policy level.”

“How the fuck can you talk about policy?” asks one of the men, whose Hivebody looks like a russet potato in an off-the-rack suit. “Everything I touch is trying to tell me where it’s been. Do you know what my assistant’s been doing with my pens, Jim? He’s been sticking them up his ass after I go home and setting them out for me to use in the morning. Every fucking one of them. I pick one up to sign a donor letter, I can feel the pen sliding right up his ass.”

“It’s called telemetry,” Fahima says. “Psychic impressions off objects via touch. You could try wearing gloves until you can control it a little better.” Lowery glares at her as if she’s failed to give the correct answer. “And I’m sorry. About the ass thing.”

“My pens hate me,” he mutters. “All my pens.”

“We’re all grappling with personal situations, Tom,” says Lowery. “But the nation is grappling, too. And we’ve pledged ourselves to serve.” It’s hokey, but it strikes a chord. The men stand up straighter, prouder. Even Tom the potato man becomes a little less amorphous. The shoulders of his cheap suit fill in; the lumps that make up his face smooth themselves out. It’s the first time Fahima sees potential in Lowery. His earnestness is a virtue. There are people who speak it as their native tongue. Those who don’t, like Fahima, can hear it and can wish it were their first language. Lowery might be something people could aspire to. This man might be their model minority.

He’s going to be president, Fahima thinks. When it happens, Fahima will share some of the credit. She’s created a constituency for him. Of those here, Lowery will be the quickest to grasp that. He’s the reason they’ve all kept quiet about what they’ve become, Fahima thinks. He wants to be the first to come out.

Lowery outlines the proposal package he and Fahima worked on, although her name is absent in his discussions. Federal funding for Resonant schools, overseen by the Bishop organization. Emergency and disaster relief funding to deal with accidents like the blackout in San Jose and the earthquakes in Cleveland. A legislative committee and a civil rights committee. Ideas spark with certain members of the group. Lowery crafted the package this way, shaped the ideas she gave him into individual pet projects. The whole thing takes hours. The men drift into cliques and knots, ignoring Lowery once he’s moved on from whatever aspect of the plan appeals to them.

“There will be specific issues related to criminality,” Lowery says. “Not every new Resonant is going to be an angel.” He turns to Frank Adkins, who has been left out until now. “Frank, I was thinking that with your background as a prosecutor, you’d be uniquely suited to address—”

“I am no part of your bullshit, Jim,” Adkins says. His Hivebody, a slow strobe a moment ago, solidifies. His face sets into a hard mask. It’s the look that separates true believers like Adkins from opportunists like Jefferson Hargrave. Hargrave saw hatred as something he could market and brand. Adkins has hate in his heart, a seed he cultivates. There are shows of civility required of a man in his position; his hatred has to lie quiet in him. But she can see it in his pained smile when he has to disclaim his hatred publicly and in his dead-eyed glare when he finally can let it come to light.

“We’re abominations. Damned things,” Adkins says. “You