An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 1.10
I froze.
The knock at the door came again.
Almost reflexively, I sunk onto the Other Place, and stared around the room. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Well, out of the ordinary by the standards of a twisted bare-concrete-and-rust madness dimension, at least. I could see it was hazy, or possibly misty on the other side of the dirty glass of the window, but nothing was staring in at me.
I should probably answer the door, then.
Perhaps it was the men in black, come to recruit me into a sinister conspiracy which found unnoticed parahumans and used them as secret deep cover assets away from the public eye. I was about to be whirled away into a world of intrigue and politicking, and would also coincidentally get to leave Winslow and get secret agent tutors who would teach me everything I needed to know for my new role. And so would never see Emma, Madison or Sophia again.
Though the men in black would probably actually also be the women in black, because any sinister conspiracy which only recruited men was probably not too interested in me.
And was also pretty stupid for passing over half the population, so I wouldn't want to be a member anyway.
I opened the door outwards, and came face to face with a horrifying walking corpse which seemed both frozen and burned. I flinched and gasped, and then remembered that I was still seeing the Other Place.
That was probably a bad habit. Forgetting that I was still looking into a twisted version of the real world where everything was decayed and horrifying was, all things considered, something I shouldn't be doing. I should see if I could find a way to only see it with one eye at a time, or see both it and the real world at the same time, or something like that.
Returning to normalcy, I saw the person at the door was, in fact, Sam. She was almost certainly not a secret agent for the New World Order or whoever your cabal de jour was. Even if – I inwardly sighed – she would probably look better in a black suit and mirrored sunglasses than I would. We might have both had scabs on our wrists, but she didn't have marks on her face and was prettier than me on top of that.
She was also looking at me funny.
"I'm a little… uh, jumpy," I said, biting my top lip. "Sorry."
"Yeah, I saw you freak out in meditation," she said, shrugging. She had her thumbs hooked in the waistband of her bottoms. "Uh…"
"I haven't been sleeping well, and I dozed off because it was all quiet and I had a nightmare," I said, quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly.
"I wasn't actually asking that," she said, flicking her head. The motion seemed more appropriate for someone with longer hair, and looking more closely I could see that her short cut was a little rough around the edges. "I was actually going to ask – well, the rest of us are hanging out in the rec room. Are you doing anything?"
Well, I'm making monsters with my mind which only exist physically in a creepy hell-place which exists parallel to the normal world, I didn't say. Sorry about the one which almost attacked you in the meditation class – oh, did I not mention that? "Sure, nothing really," I said. "Just reading."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Oh, you're another one of those ones," she said. "Come on, then."
It turned out that one of the rooms along our corridor was actually a rec room, with sofas, a television in a protective cabinet, and some old magazines stacked in a corner. The walls were a clearly-chosen-to-be-calming shade of blue, and the plaster was cracked up near the top. Sam collapsed down next to Leah, while I took a seat next to Emily. Kirsty wasn't present.
"… but telenovelas are funny!" Emily insisted, continuing the conversation I'd heard on the way here. "So much overacting!"
"You're the only one who speaks any Spanish," Leah said, her head resting on the soft arm of the sofa.
"Not enough to understand them," Emily said cheerfully. She flashed an impudent grin at me. "Taylor, yeah? Come on, we should totally watch one and make up our own dialogue for it! It'd be even better than knowing what was going on!"
"Uh," I began intelligently. Of all the things which I had expected someone to say to me, that hadn't been one of them. Emily looked younger than me, and was certainly acting that way. "What's going on?"
"Sam and Em are arguing over what to watch," Leah said, yawning. "I think Sam must've gone off to grab you to get support or something. I don't really care. I'm so bored I'm okay with anything."
"You could at least have backed me up," Sam said accusingly.
"Could have, but that would have taken effort," she retorted.
"You're a terrible friend," Sam said, lips twisting into a pout.
Something flashed across Leah's face, too fast for me to catch it. She covered it with a frown. "Look, I see you're trying to get me to throw a cushion at you, but I'm not going to fall for it! They're mine!"
"So terrible," Sam said, shaking her head. "Anyway!" she began, flicking through the channels. "Today, we have a choice of Emily's Spanish thing that no one understands, an episode of some historical drama thing where… uh, the women are all running around in petticoats, something which seems to involve men in suits in Las Vegas, adverts, more ads, music channel, music channel, country music station… okay, I think we've gone into the radio stuff." She started heading back down the channels.
"The petticoats thing can't be too terrible," I suggested. I thought I recognised it as one of the endless stream of Pride and Prejudice remakes, and it might have been one of the better ones.
"Seconded," Leah said quickly. "Wasn't that Jane Eyre?"
Oh, apparently it was, we found after watching a few minutes of it.
"Is it always this… boring?" I asked, after a suitable period.
"Stupid historical dramas? Yeah," Emily said, a little sulkily.
"No," I said, waving my hand. "I mean all this. Like, at the moment, we're just being left alone and," I shrugged. "I guess I never really thought about what happened in here until-"
"… until you wound up here, yeah," Sam said. "Same here."
"I think it might be because none of us are really severe," Leah said. "Like… well, I know we're all going to be out of here soon?" she turned it into a question, glancing at me.
"Yeah," I said. That surprised me. Or were they not counting Kirsty? She wasn't here. Maybe she had an appointment or something. Or was sitting in her room as I had been. She probably wasn't making monsters with her mind, though, I thought and shivered. "Just being watched because," I held up my wrists, silently. "But it just seems dull. I don't think the books I took with me will last weeks."
"Oh, thank goodness!" Leah said, perking up. "Someone else with books! I'll trade you for anything. I've been bored out of my mind. I ran out of new books weeks ago and the library here is trash."
"You also ran out of my books," Sam drawled.
"You only brought three, and I'd read two of them already. You barely count as a book-source," Leah said playfully, prodding her in the arm. "You're totally inadequate as a bastion of bookishness. Your literary lack is legion. Your wordliness is… um, woeful. Your… text-ness is terrible. And so on and so forth because I'm running out of alliteration."
"Text-ness?" I asked. I couldn't have stopped myself for a million do… okay, I could have stopped myself for a million dollars. But I couldn't have stopped myself for – like, ten or so.
"Leah has caught worditis," Sam said. "It may be terminal."
"I've had it for years," Leah said dismissively, flapping a hand. "Have you read anything by Claire Golding? I don't suppose you have her new book with you?"
I shook my head. "Sorry," I said. "I got it for Christmas, but I already finished it, so I didn't bring it."
Leah crossed her arms. "Damn," she said. "Well, what did you think of it, anyway?"
"Not her strongest," I admitted. That was putting it lightly. It had been a chore to get through the second half of the book. Sarah had spent most of the time feeling sorry for herself. I didn't read books to follow people moping about how they couldn't change their situation. I got enough of that in real life. "I think she's losing her edge. The Falling Petals wasn't great, either."
She frowned at me, too-thin lips pursing. "Really? I liked The Falling Petals. I think it was certainly stronger than Leftmore Willows. Have you read any Umberto Eco?"
"Is that an author or a series?" I asked.
"That would be a 'no', then," she said. "I'd lend you one of his ones in return for any books you have, but they didn't let me bring in 'In the Name of the Rose'." She smiled, wrapping her arms around herself. "I guess the Diabolicals really are everywhere."
I didn't get it.
"Ignore her," Sam said. "Hit her with a rolled up newspaper if you really can't stand the constant references to books." She sighed. "Someone got the paper in the café this morning before me. I'm feeling news deprived. When this is over, can we go to a news channel and see what's happening outside these walls?"
It was strange, sitting there with them. Not because I was sitting around in my pyjamas with three other girls I barely knew, watching a drama. No, it was strange because it somehow managed to feel comfortable. Leah and I talked quietly for a bit about books, and I found out that my musical tastes had almost nothing in common with either Sam.
I'd almost forgotten where I was, when a bleeping went off Emily excused herself, to return with a paper cup of water. She shuddered as she swallowed some pills. "The aftertaste is yuck," she said, pulling a face, drinking more water. "Worse than the last lot. They put you on anything yet, Taylor?"
"Not yet," I said. "I think they mentioned sleeping things, though. But," I sighed, shoulders slumping, "I guess I don't like the idea of having to take pills."
There seemed be a lot of sighing going on. It wasn't a surprise. The air here tasted a little stale, in its medicinal clinicalness.
Emily shrugged. "It's not like it's a big deal," she said. "I'm just in here for a few weeks while they switch my meds." She rolled her eyes. "Again. Which means I wind up here while they phase me over and keep an eye on me while the new lot builds up in my system or however the hell it works. I just hope this new lot doesn't make me feel as sick. And, you know, actually works all the time. Like, I was totally glad that the last lot didn't work properly, because it made me feel like shit all the time and honestly? I was feeling so bad that being crazy didn't sound like such a bad deal." She shook her head. "So, what, do you lot know each other already?"
I blinked. "Huh?"
Leah looked me up and down. "I don't think I've seen her at school," she said to Sam. "Arcadia?" she asked me.
I shook my head. "Winslow," I admitted. And it was an admission, even as this confirmed my suspicions about them. Arcadia High was the other big school, on the other side of town. It was the nice school, with the expensive facilities and the brand new swimming pool and presumably even teachers who gave a damn, if their budget stretched that far. Winslow was not the nice school.
"Ah," Sam said, stretching out before curling her legs up on the sofa. "Makes sense that you didn't look familiar." She sighed. "This is my first time in this place," she said, folding her arms. "Worst. Christmas. Ever."
"I got wobbly in the run-up to Christmas because I wanted to let myself pig out a bit over the holidays, but I was over my target weight and so I-" Leah screwed her eyes shut. "No. I was stupid and made everyone worried and," she sighed, "ruined everyone's Christmas. And I got everyone at school another talk about the dangers of being too thin, so I'm probably going to get stick for it."
"There are a lot of them," Sam said.
"Really?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. I hadn't thought of that. I thought everything would be better at Arcadia, and said that.
"Could we not talk about it?" Leah said quietly. I hastily apologised, feeling like a brute. I didn't want to talk about why I was here, so why would other people?
"I'm home-schooled," Emily said, with a sigh. "My mum doesn't trust the schools because she's with the Movement. Like, even before my head got funny, she was all 'they won't teach you the right things' and 'they'll just mean you come into contact with the wrong sort of boys' and things like that. And now she's also all 'if you went to school, the stress would make your condition worse'."
I have to say, at least to me home-schooling sounded kind of appealing, and said as much.
"Trust me," Emily said darkly. "It isn't."
An hour or so passed peacefully, before the tannoy went off.
"Taylor Hebert, you have a telephone call at Reception. Telephone call for Taylor Hebert."
I excused myself, and headed straight there. There was only one person who was really likely to call me. Sitting down on the cushioned chair by the telephone, I took the call.
"Taylor?" asked my Dad. "Hello. How're you holding up?"
"Dad," I said warmly. "I'm… I'm doing good, I think."
We talked for a while. It was good to hear from him. I'd only seen him yesterday, but it seemed much, much longer. In the time since he'd dropped me off, I'd worked out how to control my powers and how to see into the Other Place, and also how to make and control the creepy monsters. I'm not sure that was what they'd meant when they said that the psychiatric hospital would help me, but the boredom did seem to be giving me reason to improve. We talked of nice, cheery, mundane things, and I told him that I'd met the girls in the same section and they seemed nice and the woman who looked after us and she was nice and my psychiatrist and he was nice and everything was… nice. Although…
"Dad," I asked. "Why are you calling now? Shouldn't you be at work?"
"Everyone got sent home early today," he said, sighing. "There's another Movement march tonight, and the police are busy cordoning off the area and clearing the place. The company shifted shifts around, so I'll be working this weekend. No one wants anyone around the place when everything's tense after last week."
I inhaled sharply. "What happened last week?" I asked. "Dad? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Taylor. It's not really important so-"
"Dad, they're shutting down the place for a march," I said, trying to keep my voice down. "That's not something that isn't important."
"A mob went for one of the workers' buses over at Filkmore, and… well, they were immigrant workers and there were some deaths," he said reluctantly. "On both sides. And there have been more attacks. I'm… well, you shouldn't be worrying about it. I'm fine, and the police should have everything in hand. Don't think about it, Taylor."
"I have a lot of time to think," I said. "I'm bored more than anything at the moment. Though," I cleared my throat, "I talked with my psychiatrist – I said I met him, yes. He was nice, and he doesn't think I need pills at the moment." That wasn't quite true, because he just said he didn't want to put me on them yet, quite apart from the fact that he was a monstrous spider-man in the Other Place, but that was what Dad would want to hear. "So we're going to just be talking for now."
"That's good, that's good. And talking about talking, Taylor, I think you should-" he began, and trailed off. He paused. "Why didn't you tell me about Emma?" he asked, slowly and painfully.
I paled. I was glad I was sitting down because my legs felt like jelly. "Tell you what?" I managed, knuckles whitening around the telephone.
"I know, Taylor. I found out from the cops," he said. "I… I meant to only ask you once you were back home, but the conversation just led into it and then I was sure that if I didn't ask you now, I never would."
I sighed. "I thought it was just a falling out at first," I said, trying to move away from the topic. He didn't need to know everything. "Maybe she was upset because we didn't go to summer camp together, I don't know. Maybe that was it. I sometimes wonder if I said something to her which… which I don't even remember, but really hurt her. But she'd met new friends and didn't want anything to do with me and," I swallowed, "that hurt. But we'd fallen out before, and I thought if I just… waited out, we'd be friends again. And then… she didn't try to be friends again. I don't know. Maybe I did get her angry in some way. And things had got better before Christmas! She wasn't talking to me, but she wasn't doing bad stuff."
"You should have told me," he said.
"It was girl stuff," I protested. "And," I paused, "if I'd told someone, I was afraid they'd just get worse because I'd be a tattletale."
"How did you manage to keep it quiet since last summer?" he asked.
I took a deep breath. "Summer before last," I said weakly. "Oh-nine."
There was an awkward silence. "Is… is there anything else you want to tell me?" he asked. I could hear the distress in his voice, knew how horrible he must be feeling, and my heart went out to him. I really wanted to tell him, I really did. About what I was seeing. About what I could do.
I could tell him everything. I could talk to him. I could join the local Wards, the group which looked after young parahumans, and they could get me moved to Arcadia, where all the other Wards supposedly went. The Protectorate, the US government cape organisation, hired every parahuman they could find. If you didn't want to be paramilitary or your skills weren't right for it; why, there were lots of civilian fields you could work in. There were Thinkers on all kinds of committees in the federal government, Tinkers kept society working, and… well, they were the most employable ones, if you didn't want to go for the military or join a Parahuman Response Team.
I could do things. Make things better. I wouldn't even go out and fight crime, because I was a Thinker, and even before I worked out what I could do with those strange projections in the Other Place, I was pretty sure I had a psychometric power. I could be… like, some kind of psychic cop-assistant, investigating crime scenes and telling people 'He didn't die here. The body was moved'.
That was depressing, in its own way. I mean, yes, sure, I'd be helping people, solving crimes and helping find killers. But that would mean I'd spend every day at school not letting people know what I was – all the Wards were capes, parahumans who concealed their identities – which seemed to be to be a very lonely life. Working day and night with people who you could never go off duty with, never show your face, never let them really know you.
And if I was using my powers to solve crimes, it would certainly be something which would mean I couldn't go maskless, even when I was old enough to leave. A Tinker who just worked on making those new 'smartphones' could be just another person, but an investigator who could solve crimes no one else could would be a target. No wonder so many people ended up working directly in the Protectorate, where you could relax with other people like you. The mask and cape – usually not literally a cape nowadays – set you apart.
I didn't want that. I'd spent the past year with no real friends, and the idea of my adult life being like that was soulcrushing. Maybe – maybe when I was out of here, I'd go look at the Wards, see what they were like. If they could get me away from Winslow, it would be worth it. But it'd be a big step. Once I told the Protectorate and they'd confirmed it, I'd be on record. Even if I turned down the offer, which you could do, and went back to my normal life, things wouldn't be the same. What if some supervillain stole the list of names? They might try to hurt me or Dad – or try to recruit me and threaten Dad to get me to work for them.
I wouldn't let Dad get hurt because of me. He was safer off not knowing. Not until I was sure that was what I wanted to do.
I could think about it later. Pretty sad, how trying not to get depressed about how the world sucked and I now at least had something which would guarantee me a job as an adult had just managed to lead into further dark thoughts. Wonder if that was a special Thinker power in its own right? The ability to find the downside of any given situation?
Or maybe I was just feeling blue because I didn't want to be here at all. Hearing him speak, hearing him upset because he'd obviously found out about what had been going on from the police or something, and had been bottling it up, not saying anything while I was in hospital – I wiped my suddenly runny eyes.
"I miss you," I said in a choked voice. "I want to be home."
"And I want you to be home, kiddo," he said, his voice breaking up too. "Just… just concentrate on getting well, okay? Don't think about school or anything. I promise, I won't bring it up again. Just… just please please please talk to your therapist person or whatever the professional term for it is. When you're out of that place, everything's going to change, I promise."
"Okay," I said faintly. I couldn't see how he could promise that, but I wanted to believe it so hard.
"I'll call you tomorrow, okay? Every day. I said I would, and I will. I love you."
"Thank you," I whispered. "I love you too."
After an awkward bit where neither of us really wanted to put down the phone or hang up, we managed to mutually stumble towards ending the call. I put the phone back on its hook, and sighed.
"Was that your dad?" one of the nurses said, coming over to shoo me away from the seat by the phone.
"Yes," I said, blotting my eyes on my sleeves. "Just feeling a bit homesick now."
"Poor girl," she said warmly. "Still, it looked like you were enjoying talking to him at first. That's nice. It's good to have family. Too many people here don't get any calls at all."
And I could even have believed her platitudes, if I hadn't checked the Other Place, and seen her corpulent, bloated form, which pulsed and trembled with every heartbeat. I had no idea what that meant, but somehow it made her words ring hollow. I made my way back to the rec room in Wilson, and slumped down, hugging a pillow.
That night, I dreamed that I was being torn apart. That I was fractured and broken within the rusty iron locker, surrounded by dead caterpillars, and everything that made me me was seeping through the cracks in my mind and body. My life crawled away from me, along with my mind, and I scrabbled in the filth and grime, trying to pull them back into me. I was a porcelain doll in a cold dead universe which hated me, and I was bleeding out.
I reached out, and wilfully impaled my hand on one of the spikes which was already slick with my own blood. The nail-stigmata piercing my flesh, I broke it off, and screamed as I stabbed the life trying to escape me. I pinned it to the ground, and it wriggled, like a trapped insect. I had to get it back in me. I had to.
I woke in the Other Place, whimpering to myself. There was iron growing on the walls, coating the bare concrete like a scab. I was sinking into the red-black oil, and it was sinking into me. It smelt of the locker. Panicking, flailing, I managed to return to normalcy, and lay in this dark room – God, I wanted to be home again, back in my own bedroom! – curled into a ball on the bed.
In the end, I managed to cry myself back to sleep, and didn't dream again.
