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

“It wasn’t the dog’s fault,” Sarah says, rubbing Cortex behind the ear. When she was a kid, a dog had come off the leash and attacked her. New to her abilities, Sarah panicked and jumped her whole consciousness into the dog to get him to stop. She immediately pulled back, but a sliver of her mind remained in the dog. The owner apologized and took the dog home, but something in him pined for Sarah, that shard of her calling out to the rest. Sarah, for her part, became deeply absent-minded, forgetting names, entering rooms unable to remember what she’d come in looking for. One day, the dog showed up at Sarah’s doorstep, tongue lolling out cheerfully, thrilled to be back by her side. Sarah didn’t name him, but he came with her to Bishop. The initial fracture had left scars, and at some point in their third year at Bishop, Sarah began to lose memories, like an audiotape played so many times that it demagnetizes. Bishop came up with the idea to use the dog like an external hard drive. Sarah backed up her memories into the dog’s mind, trailing her hand back toward him to access them as she needed to. Patrick, sixteen and constantly smirking, had named the dog Cortex.

“What ever happened to Raygun?” Sarah asks.

“Nothing happened to him,” Patrick says. “I made him up.”

It’s a tradition that no one acknowledges has happened before. Every generation has to discover rebellion for itself. Otherwise what’s the point? One night, ideally the coldest night of the year, the final-years sneak out after hours and go to Coney Island. As if it’s suddenly occurred to them to do so, not because it’s been done before. They sneak out in small groups, each one with a separate plan.

“You sure you got this?” Bryce asks Waylon in the elevator.

“I got this,” he says, annoyed. Despite their long-term business arrangement, Waylon’s always been peevish around Bryce. Waylon claims that it’s because Bryce flaunts his appearance: he’s a head taller than anyone else at Bishop and has skin like the bark of an oak tree that scrapes and grates when he moves. Carrie suspects that it’s because Bryce is openly gay, a hot item in Bishop’s queer community, whereas Waylon has barely managed to scrounge up a date in years here.

“We can just walk right past him,” Carrie says. “I can do that.”

“Let him have his moment to shine,” Miquel says. All of them are bundled against the cold except Bryce. He wears one of the beautiful silk shirts someone at the Commune custom tailors for him. Its deep green sets off the paper white of his skin. In the lobby, Waylon raps his knuckles on Shen’s desk to get the doorman’s attention.

“You kids headed out?” Shen says.

“We’re going for pizza,” Waylon says.

“Cheap slices or fancy?” Shen asks.

Waylon reaches awkwardly over the desk and lays a hand on Shen’s massive shoulder. He has to stand on tiptoe to do it.

“We’re going to go out in this weather for a cheap slice?” Waylon says.

“So you’re going to Rubirosa on Mulberry,” says Shen.

“We’re going to Lil’ Frankies on First,” Waylon says, hand resting on Shen’s shoulder.

“No,” says Shen, “you’re going to Rubirosa on Mulberry, and then you’re coming back and saying thank you, Shen, for saving me from my own ignorance. Take the 6 down to Spring, you come right up next to it,” says Shen.

Waylon pulls his hand back, scratches his chin. Then, with another awkward stretch, he touches Shen on the shoulder one more time. “We’ll try it,” he says. “You want us to bring you back a slice?”

Shen hardly ever leaves the desk. He survives on food brought to him by students and teachers who venture out into the city. He is a connoisseur of the leftovers of Manhattan and Brooklyn. So it’s a shock when he says, “I’m good.”

Each of them signs the sheet, and after specific menu recommendations, Shen sends them on their way.

On the sidewalk, set back the legally required fifty feet, there’s a throng of the most dedicated worshippers, who are out here daily, no matter the weather. They call themselves “harmonics” or “latents” or “aspirants,” and they’re convinced they have the potential to be Resonants. They call out to students and faculty exiting Bishop to touch them. A touch, they know, they believe, will jump-start something within them. Carrie recognizes one of them, a girl with bright purple hair and vine tattoos that creep out of the collar of her Carhartt and up her neck. Carrie first saw her at one of Hayden’s shows, but she’s a regular with the sidewalk set. Maybe it’s her persistence that puts Carrie off, or the fact that the girl’s need feels familiar, not unlike Carrie’s own. She wants to tell the girl, It doesn’t fix you. She wants to say the need doesn’t go away, it only changes shape.

The girl spots Carrie. She tries to hold eye contact, pleading silently. Carrie tugs at Miquel’s coat sleeve.

“Let’s go this way,” she says, taking the long route to the liquor store. When she looks over her shoulder, the girl is huddled back in with the others, clapping her mittened hands together for warmth.

“Did you see that?” Waylon says once they’re out in the street. “I made Shen refuse food. I am a mind control master. I’m a fucking Jedi.”

“What’s with all the touching?” Bryce asks.

“It forms a connection,” Waylon says, taking on the air of an expert. “Hypnotists do it all the time on TV.”

“You’re learning mind control from TV hypnotists?” Carrie asks.

“What I did was the psychic equivalent of a posthypnotic suggestion,” says Waylon. “In two hours, for reasons he cannot even fathom, Shen will sign us back in. Then, under cover of darkness, Carrie will sneak us through the lobby.”

“You sure this will work?” Miquel asks.

“The man said no to fancy Nolita pizza!” says Waylon.