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

at him, unsure what he means. When she figures it out, she frowns. “That seems like a terrible fucking idea.”

“That’s what I said,” says Patrick.

“Fuck, now I’m agreeing with Patrick,” Fahima says.

“He needs to know what’s at stake,” Bishop says.

“Why do we trust this guy?” Fahima asks.

“You know why.” Bishop gives her a thin smile. Avi may have misread him as the kindly uncle of the group. His smile has a threat in it, and it’s effective.

Fahima sighs, resigned, and turns to Avi. “Come meet Prince Charming.”

She goes to one of the room’s actual doors. They’re heavy steel, in contrast to the rich wood door Avi came through. She punches in a long string of numbers on a keypad, and the door cracks open with a hiss.

“Take him in,” says Bishop. It has the unmistakable tone of a command.

“I’m not going in there,” Patrick says. “Those lights make my eyeballs itch.”

“Scaredy-cat,” Fahima says, smirking.

“Come on,” says Sarah. “Let’s get this over with.” She takes Avi’s arm and moves him toward the open door.

“Let the ladies handle this,” Fahima says.

They enter a short hallway, and immediately Avi knows the kind of place he’s entered. His first time in a makeshift jail was in Kirkuk. Army intelligence was holding two dozen suspects in the basement of a school. Charges pending was the euphemism, but none of the men would be charged. The platoon threw up cinder block walls to separate the prisoners, with sheets of chicken wire in place of bars. Nothing physically kept the prisoners from breaking out. The structure of a jail, the word jail, and the idea behind it held them in place.

This room has the same shape and feel, although it’s permanent, better built. The walls are glass, and there are empty cells behind them. Everything is lit with a sickly green light that pulses like an artery. The lights buzz loudly, more organic than mechanical or electric. Sarah makes a noise when she steps in like she’s going to be sick.

“Fuckwit’s at the end,” Fahima says, pointing to the one occupied cell in the hall. Owen Curry sits cross-legged on the floor, rocking back and forth. He has on the brown polo shirt, which is filthy from a month of wear. He has the patchy stubble that curses blond boys that age, more like an accumulation of pale dirt than a beard. His sunken eyes float over deep, bruised bags. He stands when he hears them come in. He steps to the glass and presses his hands against it. Clouds of condensation form around the points of contact: the meat of his palms and the pads of his fingers.

“I won’t talk to him,” he says. He snarls at Avi, showing rows of uneven teeth. “You’ve given me time to think. And I am only talking to people like us from now on. If you want to have a conversation, get him out of here.”

“No one wants to talk to you, fucker,” Fahima says. “No one needs to hear anything you say. We’re here to gawk at you. Like an animal in the zoo.”

But Avi wants something more, something so big he can’t name it or speak it out loud. It’s what pushed him up the stairs at the Roseland Rest, pressed the door of Owen’s room open when he knew an ugly, meaningless death might wait inside. It was the thing that drove Avi to tour army munitions factories to see bombs being manufactured. For context, he told himself, but it was for this feeling. Proximity to something that could destroy him. Standing close to a bomb was a way of being judged, although it was forever unclear to Avi who a bomb found wanting, its victims or its survivors. That was what he saw in Owen Curry: a bomb that spoke.

“I want to talk to you, Owen,” Avi says. His voice is soft and cajoling. He steps closer to the glass. Owen is sheened in sweat. He looks sick, as if they have him in quarantine rather than a jail cell. “Where did they go, Owen? All those people, where did th—”

“Shut off these lights and I’ll show you where they went!” Owen screams. Spit flies from his lips. He bangs his forehead onto the glass, and it cracks, a spiderweb spreading from the point of impact. Sarah jumps back.

“They’re nowhere,” Owen screams, blood trickling down his forehead like the roots of a tree. Avi shivers when he makes the involuntary association, a flash of Emmeline dancing in his vision. “They’re in the null, where nothing lives. Where all the cattle go.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Sarah says. She tries to pull Avi back, but he shakes her off. He stands against the glass, annoyed that she’s even there. He’s the one who worked for this, hunted this moment across war zones and killing fields. This moment is his by right. Owen Curry is his.

“Why did you do it, Owen?” Avi says. His voice is calm and even. “Why did you kill that little girl in the church?”

Owen flinches. There’s something human in him. It flickers in his eyes, guilty, then is gone. “Because it’s a war,” he says, baring his teeth. “And we won’t win until we kill every last one of you. My friend told me all about you. You’ll kill us if we don’t kill you first. He told me what I had to do.”

Owen turns away, slumps hard against the glass, and starts sobbing.

“You don’t understand,” he yells. “I could feel him in my head, and now I can’t feel him anymore. It was so beautiful. You put these lights on me and you killed him. You killed my imaginary friend, you fuckers.”

“Any other burning questions for our guest?” Fahima asks. Owen looks like a bag of broken sticks. In the video from the mall, there was a way he reached out to the girl, a way his hand stopped short of touching her. Avi knew that gesture and the feeling behind