Bab 1: Half-Forgotten Dream
This is how it starts: you wake up with a feeling of a half-forgotten dream slipping away into oblivion, and no matter how hard you try, you can't remember what it was about. This is your mind breaking apart.
The Disease is cunning. The first thing it destroys is your ability to comprehend the damage it does. Your higher mental functions are deteriorating, you lose the ability to construct complex logic connections. This is when they usually catch it; but then sometimes they don't.
The body starts to fall apart next. At first, it's just small things: your hands are shaking, you're having trouble focusing your sight. Sometimes you understand that something is wrong, sometimes you don't. You might know the symptoms and you might feel them, but your brain had lost the capacity to connect two dots.
That's when you start to forget. The name of that actor is at the tip of your tongue, but it just won't come. You forget your mother's smell, your father's face. It's worse than that, though. You don't just forget; you forget that you knew these things at all. There's not even an empty space in your memory where something should have been, it's all just erased.
At this point, you're in free fall. Your brain is going haywire, sending false signals to your compromised body. Your senses are lying to you. You can break your arm and not feel a thing. Other times, you're safe at your home, but you are burning, drowning, you're being skinned alive. The danger is false, but the pain is real, and horrible.
You see things. You hear voices. The reality is breaking apart, but do you know it? Do you even remember what reality is? Do you remember who you are? When you look in the mirror, do you see a stranger? What does he do? What does he say?
In the end, your mind collapses. Your tortured brain is flooded with hormones it can not process, and it fries. If you're lucky, you die. If you're lucky, they put you down. But if they don't, if you slip through the cracks, you become a wraith: a broken, mad thing in the grasp of a murderous frenzy. Eventually it kills you, but not before you've killed someone else.
This is how it ends.
Imagine if waking up from a nightmare is more terrifying than the nightmare itself. Imagine painfully overanalyzing your every mistake, your every word. Imagine being reviled. Imagine being feared, imagine being afraid.
Imagine being us.
#
There's not a lot of us left. Most were killed a long time ago during the crusades, and then later in the internment camps of the XX century. Those who survived, like my grandparents, were assimilated back into the population. It was a darker, more violent time. Today things are much different. Laws were rewritten to grant us human status, and systems were put in place to protect us from those who would disagree. We even enjoy the same rights as people do, for the most part. Until the day you start to show symptoms, of course. After that, the same people who are tasked with protecting you come at night to take you away.
To send you to live on the Farm.
#
I was finishing my shift at the bar when the report came on. It was early morning, so there weren't many clients in the dimly lit hall. The sound on the television was muted, so at first I just saw the image: an old car, torn into two halves, windows tinted red with blood. The running text on the bottom read 'Wraith attack in Seattle: 23 dead'.
'Creepy shit, huh?'
I turned away from the screen to look at the girl sitting at the bar. She was cradling a cup of coffee - no sugar, lots of cream - which I poured for her a few minutes ago.
'What?'
'The wraiths. Creepy shit, huh?'
That was when I really looked at her for the first time. She was young, with unruly dark hair and too much mascara around the eyes. Pretty, but not in a way that would make her remarkable. Just another university girl from the campus. Then she smiled, and suddenly I didn't want to look away. She had the most radiant, delighted smile I've ever seen.
'I mean they look like us, talk like us, live with us. Only we can't tear a car in half. And we don't go crazy.'
I smiled, too.
'Sure we do. People go crazy all the time.'
'Yeah, but people go crazy for important reasons like moon cycles, politics and reality TV. Wraiths, they just wake up one day, and their brain decides to take a break. Woosh. 23 people dead.'
Her coffee was getting cold.
'Hey, do you think they know?'
I shrugged.
'Know what?'
'That it's their time. Do you think that they know, and don't tell anyone, because they don't mind killing people? I mean I can't blame them, after everything that people have done to them.'
I should have kept my mouth shut, like I always do, but for some reason I did not.
'They're people too'.
She looked at me then, a little confused. I think at that moment she really looked at me for the first time too.
She raised her cup.
'Amen to that.'
#
We are people, too. Or at least we once were. Then, at some point in ancient history, evolution has done its dark magic, and a small mutation of the LG34N gene has created the first wraith. Modern scientists were able to find the root of our condition, but they don't really understand how it works. Wraiths are nearly indistinguishable from ordinary homo sapiens, but we are different. We possess certain abilities that no one can explain or reproduce. All they know for sure is that these abilities are somehow connected to brain functions. The other side of the coin is that this makes our brains susceptible to a fatal degenerative disorder, the Disease. Some live to old age without experiencing any symptoms, other's don't. There's no logic to the Disease, no consistency to how and when it chooses its victims, no cure. You can't bargain with the Disease, can't pray to it, and really there's no point in cursing it. The only thing you can do is wait.
In the end, it comes to the simple fact that evolution had made a mistake.
#
I tried a few minutes of sleep on the bus, but it didn't work. The window I leaned on was cold and painted by frost. On the other side of it, the walkway flew past. Thousands of people hurried through their days, oblivious to my momentary presence in their lives, comfortable in their unknowing. Things would change if they knew what I am, even though I'd remain the same. So many things in life come down to perception: how we define ourselves, how we are defined by others. What is good, and what is evil... and where do we stand in relation to one and the other.
I put the headphones on and turned on the radio.
'... But, Howard, you can't deny the threat wraiths...'
'Please don't use that word. It's a derogatory, xenophobic term propagated by bigots and fear-mongering politicians.'
'What would you prefer we called them?'
'It's not a matter of preference, it's a matter of principle! Genetically altered are human beings, just like you and I.'
'Well, not exactly like us.'
'Sure, their genes are a little bit different. It's a mutation... like red hair or blue eyes. No one goes around demonizing people with red hair, though.'
'But that's because they are not predisposed to killing!'
'Sure, but other types of people are. Schizophrenics, for example. And why consider just genes? Socio-economic factors affect crime rates fat more drastically than DNA. Being born to a poor family raises your chances of ending up in prison. Should we just arrest all poor people?'
'You're not suggesting...'
'What I suggest is that we follow our own laws! No one has revoked the presumption of innocence. You can't vilify people for things they haven't done. Only we can, and do. The Altered Protection Agency is an abomination of constitutional law...'
I turned it off. The same arguments play out, word for word, each time the PA misses a Diseased wraith, and someone dies. People cry out for mandatory gene testing and compulsory identity disclosure, and other people cry out for civil liberty and human rights. Extremists on one side suggest to just kill us all, and that pushes the other side to raise up in condemnation. The internment camps are mentioned, and it all goes downhill from there. In the end, nothing ever changes. The Protective Agency continues to be a monolith of power, a little bit fascistic, but unquestionably effective. And we the wraiths stay in the shadow of that monolith.
#
The Protectors are very serious about keeping our identities a secret. There hasn't been a single lynching in decades, at least not officially. That's why the PA cell I'm assigned to is hidden in the basement of a hospital. They move around a lot, too. These days, when I need to come in for the test, I say that I have a doctor's appointment. Before that, it was going to the movies and visiting the library. And before that, I went with my mom, until they took her away.
The room they lock me in is sterile and empty. I strip naked under the watchful eyes of security cameras, fold my clothes and put them in a metal locker. The next room is cold and dark. Unseen sensors scan my body while I shiver. When the scans are done, I can put on a hospital gown and proceed to the testing chamber. The testing chamber looks like a generic interrogation room from police movies. There's a metal desk, two chairs, and a one-sided mirror. There's also a lot of needles and mysterious medical equipment, but I learned a long time ago to ignore it.
No matter how many times I go through this, the humiliation is a shock. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that there's nothing to fear, the fear is there.
Because I'm lying. I have a lot to fear. After all, I've been conning the PA since I was a little kid. In truth, I am much more powerful than anyone they would allow to exist.
Bab 2: The Protector
Feeling vulnerable in a hospital gown, I sat down on one of the chairs. Two nurses in surgical masks appeared in the room. Without looking at me, they hurriedly performed the usual routine: took my blood, measured my pulse and blood pressure, swabbed the insides of my cheeks for DNA samples, put sensors on my temples and chest. Then they quietly disappeared. This whole thing was a performance, really. By the time the Disease can be detected under a microscope it's already too late. The real test comes after the nurses leave, and it's this part that I need to worry about.
The door opened, and a woman carrying a glass of water came in. She was in her early thirties, with dark hair and pale skin. Her clothes were, as always, practical and unassuming: mundane enough to fit in an office building, yet somehow stylish.
'Hello, zero six eleven. My name is Elizabeth.'
Her name wasn't really Elizabeth. Some wraiths allegedly have the ability to manipulate people's thoughts through neurolinguistics, and knowing a person's name makes it easier. For that reason Protectors never reveal their names, and any personal details in general, to their wards. The woman was my handler for the past three years, and each time we've met she invented a new name for herself. During the past few months, she was Marie, Annie and Laurel. What never changed was how she addressed me.
0611 is my PA number. My real name is Matthew, but she never uses it. Protectors have protocols against personalizing their wards, although few follow them so immaculately. From the first seconds of the test we were always unevenly matched: she knew my name but chose not to use it, and I couldn't call her by her real name even if I wanted to.
She knew almost everything about me, and yet I knew close to nothing about her. The Protector was elusive: her mercurial nature went farther than shifting names. She routinely changed accents and mannerisms. Sometimes she wrote with her right hand, and sometimes with her left. One time I've noticed a small silver cross hanging on a chain around her neck, the next time it was gone. Trying to put together small pieces of information I knew about her became a small obsession of mine, but it was futile. I knew nothing.
And yet I knew enough to wonder. What kind of a person would take this job? Every time she walked into a room with someone like me, she was putting her life in danger. An angry wraith could kill her in a hundred horrible ways, and there'll be no stopping them. Who would volunteer to face that? And who would be able to face death while remaining calm and pleasant, seemingly relaxed?
The answer I came up with was simple but unsettling. A cold-blooded killer would.
'Hello, Elizabeth.'
She put a glass of water in front of me and sat down. There was a black metal case at her side of the table. She opened it and pulled out several objects: a transparent plastic box with iron shavings inside, a small piece of stained glass, a stack of paper with printed text on it. An ordinary notebook and a ballpoint pen came last.
'How are you feeling today?'
I shifted in my seat.
'Great. Thank you.'
She gave me a polite smile, opened her notebook and put on elegant reading glasses. The glasses were new: as far as I knew, the Protector had perfect vision. Then again, I didn't know anything.
She took the first sheet of paper from the stack and brought it to her face.
'Shall we start?'
The test starts with a series of questions. The questions are different every time, and seemingly nonsensical.
'Ashley is an artist. She loves mangoes. Do all artists love mangoes?'
After each answer, the Protector writes something in her notebook, then reads the next question.
'A group of crows is called a murder. Crows eat rotten meat and are very protective of their hatchlings. What is a group of people called?'
The purpose of the questions is to test my cognitive abilities. It's not an IQ test, she's not trying to determine my mental capacity. It's more about mental quality. The Disease messes up with how we are able to think, and so the Protector probes my mind for appropriate capabilities: logical conclusions, associative thinking, abstract thought, empathy response and so on.
Today everything went as usual. The questions flowed, strange and confusing as always, and after a while, I stopped thinking. That was normal: the test was designed to make you answer instinctively. There was no way of knowing what a correct answer might be anyway.
'Imagine a pyramid built of gold. At the bottom of the pyramid, slaves worship false gods. What is inside the pyramid?'
Finally, the stack of paper was gone, with only one sheet remaining on the table. But the Protector didn't take it. Instead, she leaned to me:
'Twenty-three people are killed by a genetically altered person. How many are left alive?'
I answered on autopilot.
'One.'
She raised an eyebrow, and my heart skipped a beat. Suddenly I was very aware of how small and concealed the test chamber was.
'Explain your thought process.'
I froze.
'You described a situation involving twenty-four people. Twenty-three victims and the murderer. The murderer is still alive.'
The Protector looked at me for a few moments and then smiled. She looked pleased, and I didn't like it. While she was writing something down, I suddenly remembered the girl from this morning.
Amen to that.
'Okay, now let's finish up.'
They're people too.
She pushed the transparent box to me. I made the iron shavings inside move. The piece of stained glass was red: I made it look blue for ten seconds. The glass of water was last.
'I want you to make the water inside that glass boil, zero six eleven.'
I put my finger on the edge of the glass and started tracing its outline.
Using the Ability is hard to explain. It's like trying to describe how you hold balance: you just do. Some people have better balance than others, though, and the same goes for the Ability. It manifests differently in different wraiths, and with different force. Most are Category 9, with some rudimentary capabilities. It'll take them a few hours to boil a glass of water. The higher the category, the more potent the Ability is. Wraiths of Category 6 will be able to accomplish it in around fifteen minutes, for example. But there are very few of them.
And starting with Category 3, genetically altered are no longer considered safe to be left in the population. If the PA knows you're C3, you disappear. Some say they terminate you, some say they send you to a secret laboratory to be probed and dissected. Whatever the reality is, one thing is certain: once you hit C3, you're gone.
That's why I have to be very, very careful not to boil the water too quickly. It should be easy to appear weaker than I am, but it's not. The Protector monitors my brain waves during the test, and she'll see if I try to fake. For that reason, I separate my mind into partitions. Some parts are raising the temperature, the others simultaneously lower it. The water is slow to heat, and the brain scan shows that I'm working at full capacity.
My mother taught me that trick. She was gifted, and so had to fool the PA into thinking that she's not. At her best, she was able to hold three pairs of Affects in her mind. But her Ability was less potent than mine. I had to learn to hold eight, which as far as I know put me somewhere near the top of the PA threat level list.
And that's why my life depended on them not finding out how capable I really was.
Imagine simultaneously writing different sentences with two hands. Now imagine you have eight pairs of hands. I needed to concentrate really hard to not let that damn water boil too soon.
They're people too.
I remembered the girl from the bar again. Her delighted smile, beautiful and wide and open. I don't remember smiling that wide since before my mom got the Disease. And even before that, smiles like hers were rare...
Searing pain shot through my hand. I flinched away from the glass, looking in astonishment at the angrily boiling water inside. The hot steam that burned me made Protector's glasses mist over.
She was surprised, too, though poised far better than me.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
'Well. That was rather quick, zero six eleven.'
I stole a glance at the electronic watch hanging above the table. Nine minutes fifty-four seconds. Almost twice as fast as I was planning. Damn it!
'Looks like your Ability is growing, huh?'
Which wasn't unheard of at my age, but still messed up my carefully planned con schedule. I'll have to adjust a lot of things.
'Wow. Yeah, strange.'
She took off her glasses and winked at me:
'Let's try this again next time. Thank you for your time.'
Hadiah
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