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

side is a long shot from a view Fahima recognizes. It’s the ridge above Oceanside Way, the enclave in Maine where Sarah and Patrick’s parents live. Homeland vans line the street. Inhibitor lights are rigged to the streetlights, casting a green pallor over the entire street, a miasma that bends the Maine summer sun. Front doors open, and Oceanside Way’s residents are marched out of their homes with their hands on their heads.

“I see it, Mom,” Patrick says. “Call the lawyer right— Well, then Dad’s doing the right thing. He won’t be able to. The lights. Your abilities won’t— Mom? Mom. We’re going to fight this. For now, I need you to open the door for them and give yourselves up. Don’t do anything stupid. I love you. Sarah and I are going to fix this.”

“Why would they start with them?” Sarah asks after he’s hung up. “It’s a retirement community. None of those people are a threat.”

“They help fund the school. Cut off the money,” Patrick says. “I expect our accounts are being frozen. They’ll try to starve us out.”

It’s not the money that worries Fahima. The fact the cameras are there has meaning: Homeland called it in. They wanted an audience. They have no interest in doing this quietly. Fahima wonders if the thought of footage of dead kids in the Bishop lobby will be enough of a deterrent to keep Homeland from breaking down the doors.

“We’re next,” says Sarah.

“We don’t know when next is,” Fahima says.

“I need a week,” Patrick says.

“Start relocating the younger students to the other schools,” says Sarah, issuing orders to neither of them in particular. “I’m not letting our kids get killed.”

“There’re some we should keep around,” Patrick says. “I have a list.” He turns to Fahima. “I can’t help thinking Emmeline Hirsch could be an asset.”

“By asset you mean weapon,” Fahima says.

“Yes, Fahima, that is what I mean,” he says coldly. Something about the faux casualness of his suggestion puts her off. It sounds like he’s been thinking about Emmeline’s strategic potential for a while. He looks hungry at the prospect of conscripting her.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Fahima says. “She may not be in the best mental state for battle.”

“None of us are,” Patrick says.

—

When Kimani’s door opens on the lab wall, Fahima holds out two six-packs of expensive West Coast IPA like an offering.

“Someone needs a favor,” Kimani says, taking the beer and inviting her in.

“I’ve been keeping these in the fridge for just that,” says Fahima. “I didn’t think I’d have to use them both at once.”

Kimani sets the beers on the table where the silver sculpture used to be and cracks one open.

“I need you to take Emmeline and hide,” Fahima says, collapsing into the plush chair she thinks of as hers. “Just bring her in here, pull the door in behind you, and sit still for a couple days.”

“Fahima—”

“I’m probably wrong,” she says. “But I’d rather be paranoid than be right and…”

“And what?”

“A couple days,” Fahima says. “Don’t move or someone might spot you in the Hive.”

“We’re not talking about Homeland.”

“I’m probably wrong,” Fahima says again.

Kimani takes a long sip of beer. She looks around the room, assessing its size, its potential to house two people for an undetermined string of days. “She’s going to think she’s being punished,” Kimani says.

“She’s being protected.”

“She won’t see it that way.”

“Make her see it that way,” says Fahima, too loud, too sharp. Kimani, never one to be yelled at, glares at her. “Help her see it that way.” Fahima’s struck by how feeble the word help can sound.

“She needs more than me right now,” Kimani says. “She’s hurt. She needs all of us.”

“I know,” Fahima says. So much comes down to what Fahima’s willing to do, who she’s willing to hurt. At the end, afterward, she can tell them all it was for their own good. At the end, she won’t need to be forgiven.

“You’re going to want me here if shit goes south,” Kimani says. “I could drop her somewhere and come right back. Put her somewhere safe.”

“I don’t want her to be alone,” Fahima says, because this is the limit. Emmeline will have someone with her even if that puts everyone else at risk. Emmeline’s done enough.

“You need a back door,” Kimani says. “You need a way out.”

“We won’t,” Fahima says. “One way or another, we walk out the front door.”

The dorm rooms at Bishop are packed with new students, especially on the first- and second-year floors. Rooms on the sixth and seventh floors house four or five kids each in bunks and on cots. They’ve barely settled in and need to be relocated to schools that don’t yet have their feet under them. It’s a challenge, but Sarah is loved and feared by those she’s installed as the heads of the other schools. They scramble to make arrangements, to keep her happy. The teachers at Bishop line the youngest students up outside the old faculty lounge, and Sarah fires up the Gates. The students walk through in single file to the schools in Chicago and Houston and LA, where teachers they’ve never met are waiting for them. The students’ protests are drowned out by the jet engine roar of the Gates. All the Bishop facilities are one massive school now, hallways linked by Gates that can jump a student across the country in a blink. But the academy is on its own, the flashpoint for whatever comes. The Gates can be shut down with the flick of a switch and will be the second Homeland comes through the front door.

The minute a dorm room is emptied, Patrick has people there to fill it. Sarah’s developed a network of teachers and administrators. Patrick’s built a pyramid of fighters and trainers. It’s apparent he’s been at this a long time. His wilderness years were not all about hunting Owen Curry. They’ve adopted the name of the first group