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

of you,” Hargrave says. “It doesn’t mean I have to follow suit.”

“So how do you respond—”

“I give people facts,” Hargrave says. “Mr. Hirsch prefers fluffy profile pieces. This one can slice you in half with her brain, but she loves puppies. That one can put the psychic whammy on your wife and daughter, but hey, he’s a Cubs fan, so he must be a swell guy.”

“I want the public to understand,” Avi says, “that these are people who—”

“See, right there is where you and I diverge,” says Hargrave.

“Where’s that?”

“You think of them as people,” he says. “A gun has no rights. A bomb does not get to vote. You want us to treat these weapons, these threats, like human beings. I am not willing to do that.”

“Mr. Hargrave,” Lakshmi says, “if we can’t start from the basic premise—”

“I sympathize,” Hargrave says. “I can’t imagine what it must do to a man to find out that what he thought was his daughter is a thing.”

Avi is up and out of his chair before he’s aware of it. He lands hard on his prosthetic leg at a bad angle and starts to fall. His fist glances weakly off Hargrave’s chin on the way down. Production assistants rush to help Avi up. Hargrave feigns shock for the cameras but looks down and throws Avi a wink as Lakshmi signals to cut to a commercial.

“I touch a nerve?” he says. All that western smarm is gone, icy Boston Brahmin in its place.

“Get him off my set,” Lakshmi shouts.

“I’m going to want a copy of that tape,” says Hargrave. He points at the nearest camera operator and snaps his fingers, as if she’s going to hand over a VHS cassette. “Personally, I can’t see filing assault charges for something so minor.” He rubs his chin. “But I’m not the one who makes those kinds of decisions. Good luck with the book, Avi. Come on the show sometime and we’ll talk about it.”

They’re supposed to meet some of Alyssa’s work friends for dinner. Not people Fahima likes much, but she agreed to it. She’s making an effort to be normal. To meet Alyssa in her otherwise normal life. Fahima’s packing up to go when Sarah’s scream blazes through the Hive.

In the time the elevator takes to get from the lab to the ninth floor, Fahima comes up with ways she could make it faster. A regenerative drive to capture the friction heat from braking and channel it back into the grid. A maglev system, like trains in Japan. Two fluorescent bulbs in the hallway are dying. They’re sorry they won’t be able to go on much longer. They’ve worked so hard. They want Fahima to know, and she wants to listen. But she has to hurry. In the room at the end of the hall, Emmeline is sobbing.

The residents of the ninth, second-years, most of them a little older than Emmeline, line the hall. They whisper among themselves. Some cry. Sarah hugs herself in the doorway as Cortex cowers behind her legs.

“I tried to go in. Help her,” she says. “When I touched her.” Sarah holds her hand up and stares at it. “It got stuck. It was going to pull the rest of me in. I couldn’t help her. I tried.”

Fahima steps past her into the room. Emmeline is curled up against the wall. She can hardly get enough breath to keep up her sobs. Emmeline’s roommate, Viola, stands near the desk. Emmeline likes Viola a lot. She’s told Fahima how kind Viola is. Viola picks up a glass of milk from the desk, holds it up, and examines it. Then the glass is back on the desk. Viola holds it up, examines it. It’s back on the desk. It’s like listening to a record skip or watching a computer program glitch. A piece of reality, hiccupping.

“Em, close your eyes,” says Fahima, squatting down so she’s face-to-face with Emmeline. “I need you to calm down. Deep breaths, Em. Deep. Breathe.”

Emmeline’s breathing slows, each inhale hitching at its apex. Eyes closed, she exhales into Fahima’s face. Her breath is sugary sweet.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Viola knocked over the glass,” Emmeline says. “It broke, and it spilled everywhere. I fixed it. I put it back on the desk. Viola was looking at it. She got stuck.”

“Can you stop it, Em?”

“It’s a loop,” Emmeline says. “I can see it in my head, but I can’t straighten it out.” She opens her eyes wide. “I can see it in my head. It’s me. I’m doing this.”

“You are, Em,” Fahima says. “But it’s not your fault. Stay with me, okay?” She puts out her hand, and Emmeline grips it. Fahima leans toward the doorway so she can see Sarah. “I need you to go to my lab. There’s a device sitting on the big table. The one that has blueprints all over it. Not the one that has the bag of chips on it. It’s a bracelet. It’s metal. I need you to get it for me.”

Sarah runs down the hall.

“Viola’s going to be mad at me,” Emmeline says. “She won’t want to be my friend anymore.”

“I’ll be your friend,” says Fahima.

Emmeline cracks a smile, although she has trouble holding it. “But you’re old.”

“I have unlimited access to snacks,” Fahima says. She thinks of Sarah in the slow elevator. A shaft of variable gravity.

“I wanted to fix the glass,” says Emmeline. “I did. I fixed it. It was nearby and insignificant. Like the sandwich.”

An Einstein-Rosen bridge with off-ramps like a highway, one at each floor.

Sarah returns with the bracelet. It hangs open like the mouth of a hungry bird.

“Can you close the door?” Sarah obliges, leaving Fahima and Emmeline alone with Viola, stuck in her loop.

“Em,” says Fahima. “This is something I’ve been working on. I’ve been calling it the Shackle.” She started working on it for the people Patrick was hunting down. The idea of putting it on