Mindlink (23 page)

Neeko looked into the woman’s face. His entire carriage relaxed
and he fell into her arms. They held each other, heads tight together and Neeko
nearly disappeared into the embrace. She shut her eyes and the emotion of the
moment radiated from the pair.

Happiness.
One
recognized it
easily, but it was not the full extent. There was more. A sense of completion.
Neeko did not merely know this woman—the two had lost each other and upon
reuniting, became whole. It was in the fiber of their skin and bleeding from
their trembling smiles.

“This must be his mother,” Natalie whispered, her eyes bright
with moisture. “I hardly know what to say. Here’s your son, sorry he was in
jail?”

His mother. For whom else could this woman be but the vessel of
Neeko’s birth as he’d claimed?
One’s
parents had
been citizens placed in the position of child rearing and assigned two children
according to a myriad of factors. He and
YLL
were
neither the first nor the last of their parent’s charges. Upon his placement in
Acquisitions, they’d received another child in a clinical arrangement suddenly
deficient and vile in the presence of this alternative.

His own eyes felt moist and his throat convulsed to witness
this healing of a broken bond. To experience such without benefit of the link.
It was small comfort in the wake of its loss.

“Thank you. To all of you,” Lor said without releasing the boy.
“I feared this day would never come. Whatever payment I might give you for the
return of Kalum, I will. It is worth far more to me than you will ever
know.”

One
translated for Natalie and the
doctor’s benefit and then responded, “We need no payment. He saved us by
suggesting we find this place. It is due to his bravery we were successful.”

Natalie tugged on his sleeve. “Tell her I did my best to get
him here in one piece.”

The translation led to a barrage of back-and-forth as Natalie
and Neeko’s mother satisfied a multitude of questions about how he’d been
captured, where he’d been, the details of his incarceration and what would be
his future. Then came introductions. Neeko, or Kalum as he’d been named before
the Telhada captured him, interjected a few words of gratitude and explanation
as well.

Wearily,
One
acted as the
intermediary for the lengthy exchange. The reunion had conjured a yearning for
something he couldn’t fathom and the complexity of his inner turmoil sapped his
strength. He wished for nothing more than a quiet room with no other present
except Ashley and the privacy of their mutual thoughts. Surely he had earned the
right to be alone for a period without fear of others considering it
selfish.

“Excuse me,” he said to Frax. “I must leave these humans in
your custody and attend to my other companion.”

He elicited a promise from Lor to assist Natalie and the doctor
with acclimation to Kir Dashamun, then extracted himself from the group. It was
none too soon. He followed a different resident to the sleeping quarters and she
showed him to an empty room. Ashley’s was across the hall, sparse and dark like
his, with nothing more in it than a flat pallet on the crushed-stone floor and a
low table with a crude metal urn inside a bowl. An uncovered bulb hung from the
ceiling, flickering.

Ashley lay on the pallet, unnaturally still, hair fanned out
around her.

One
settled in to wait, dozing, but
waking suddenly to study Ashley. What would be the future of their interaction
without the link? He carried a small hope she might be convinced to link again.
Very small. They’d reached safety and he had no guarantee she would even agree
to stay in contact. His heart lurched at the possibility.

After a long time, Ashley blinked awake and stared at the dirt
ceiling in confusion.

Scissoring to a sitting position, hands to her temples, she
squeezed. A headache, surely, from the interrogation. His own throbbed too,
right behind his eyes. Then she turned her head and caught sight of him leaning
against the wall.

“There you are,” she croaked and licked her lips. “I was
worried for a second something had happened to you. You weren’t in my head
anymore.”

“Is that not what you desired? To have the link broken? Now you
are alone in your thoughts and may be happy.” He had an almost uncontrollable
urge to touch her, to fill the gap left by the absence of the link. To
experience a lesser measure of the completion he’d just begun to understand
might be possible.

“Yep. Happy as a clam, I am.”

Without warning, she ripped out of the filthy uniform and
flopped back on the pallet, pulling the thick blanket over her so quickly, he
only caught a flash of her pale skin. Just a flash and it flung a hot spear
through his abdomen. She shut her eyes and thrust a hand under her ear like a
pillow.

He swallowed. Clearly, she did not mourn the broken link, not
that he expected anything else. But no one could understand the emptiness in his
head except Ashley. It would be preferable if she had admitted to being affected
by the loss as well.

The heaviness inside grew deeper.

Ashley moaned. “I’m so tired. Now that we don’t have to stay
linked to keep everyone alive, I want to sleep for, like, hours. Go away,” she
instructed without opening her eyes. “Thanks for letting me be the one to get
knocked out. You were right, it wasn’t so bad th...”

Sleep claimed her.

Impatient with his one-sided melancholy and determined not to
dwell on her cutting dismissal, he sought the facilities mentioned earlier.
Fatigue had slowly drained his senses and he stumbled through the warren of the
underground city to the common areas.

Fuzzily, he evaluated the thoroughfare, unsure what to do
next.

“You must be one of the new arrivals. Welcome,” a short woman
in long skirts said with a smile and then went on her way.
One
watched her stop and chat with another woman who was almost a
head taller. No one hesitated to look each other in the eye, but maintained
enough distance to prevent linking.

Where had these people come from? They were all shapes and
sizes, old, young. Nothing like Kir Barsha, where citizens were similar in
appearance.

Another resident halted in the crushed-stone street and nodded
to him. “Welcome, new guy. You looking for something to eat?”

“Ah, no.” Crushing weariness fogged his brain and he had
trouble stringing a sentence together. “I wish to find new clothing first.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to wear that uniform much longer either.
Hal.” The resident stuck out his hand and when
One’s
eyes widened, he laughed. “I forget how hard it is to adjust. You don’t have to
shake. My name is Hal. What’s yours?”

“
ZXQ
,” tumbled from his lips. It
sounded harsh and out of place. Not like a name at all. It wasn’t a name, he
realized, but a designation. A model number, as Ashley called it.

“I used to be one of those, too.
HNH
. Hal seemed more suited to the new me, so here I am.” Hal spread
his arms and grinned.

This resident spoke conversationally, like Ashley. A random
stream of consciousness too varied to follow. But with Ashley, words weren’t
required to communicate.
Used
to not be required. He
had trouble swallowing. Grief was one experience he’d prefer to have
skipped.

“It’ll take some getting used to,” Hal continued, “thinking of
yourself as something other than a Telhada puppet. Once you do, then you can
pick a new name, like Zee, for instance. That’s what most everyone does, or uses
the name they had as a child.”

One
blinked and scanned the faces
in the bustling crowd all around him. Were these people former citizens? He
hadn’t given the rumors enough credence, nor did he want to believe them. He
fled the city because he’d been wrongly persecuted—a rarity. Also, many of these
residents did not resemble citizens, especially the older ones.

But what other explanation could there be?

“Let me show you around,” Hal offered with a clap to
One’s
sore shoulder and he staggered. “It’s
overwhelming, I know. Lots to learn. Lots to absorb. What division were you
in?”

“Acquisitions,” he mumbled and followed Hal’s sprightly steps
as best he could.

“Ho, ho. The big time. What position?”

“Director. For four years.”

“Huh. So you’ll have a longer adjustment period than maybe some
others. Seems like the higher up you go, the harder it is detangle the Telhada’s
conditioning. No worries. It takes time, but you’ll get there. Here we are.” Hal
stopped at the entrance to one of the nondescript buildings lining the main
thoroughfare and saluted a passerby, who greeted them with a curious second
glance at
One
. “Up for promotion or did you just
cause issues?”

“Both,” he said automatically. Should he be giving information
to a stranger? The questions were easy to answer, as if his new acquaintance
knew what to ask. Like he could read
One’s
mind.
“How do you know to ask these things? Did your spy detector share information
with the entire population of Kir Dashamun?”

Hal chuckled and placed a companionable hand on his back.
“Nope. It’s my story too. I was number two in Wellness and Continuity. I would
have been the director within six months. Thought I was on the fast track until
I started questioning things. They don’t like it when you ask questions.”

He wouldn’t know. He’d never asked questions and never courted
trouble. He did as he was told and strived to be an exemplary citizen. For all
the good it had done. “What questions did you ask?”

“Oh, you know. The usual.” Hal knocked on the door and a
smiling woman opened it wide. “New arrival. Former citizen,” Hal said to her and
she called a greeting before disappearing from the doorway.

A moment later, she returned with a stack of cloth and handed
it to
One
, which he took with numb fingers, too
overwhelmed to thank her.

Hal led him to another building two doors down and continued
the conversation as if he’d never been interrupted. “We got reports from the
Research Division, conclusions drawn from experimentation and such on some of
your acquisitions and my director assigned me the implementation. Big stuff.
Supposed to slow the aging process further. So naturally I asked, ‘How can we
use data drawn from humans on citizens?’”

One’s stomach pitched and fire burned up his esophagus.

“Oh, I see you already know the answer to that,” Hal said
pleasantly as if
One’s
entire axis hadn’t shifted
too many degrees to remain stable. “Well, that’s good. Most people in your
position want much more in the way of proof to embrace the Telhada’s big lie.
You can’t just tell them. No, they have to learn it for themselves.”

And he was no exception. He’d learned it and learned it well,
starting from the moment the link with Ashley completed. The link hadn’t been
stimulating human responses because he’d linked with one. But because he was
one.

“See,” Hal continued. “My mistake wasn’t putting it all
together. Plenty of people in Kir Barsha know the truth. Mora Tuwa is a
degrading phrase invented by the Telhada to manipulate us into righteous
superiority. Trying to expose that lie got me scheduled for recycling faster
than I could spit. Turns out most who know don’t care. Those who do end up
here.” Hal jerked his head toward the thoroughfare and grinned. “Well, I’ll
leave you to it, then. If you need anything, ask anyone. We’re pretty informal
here.”

Hal walked away, whistling.

On knees turned to pulp,
One
stumbled into the common washroom, the back of his tongue hot and slick.
Thankfully, the room was empty in case the threat of stomach upheaval became a
reality. He splashed water on his face from the ancient pump bolted to the wall.
Droplets slid down his neck and inside the collar of his uniform. He tore it
from his abused body in a sudden rage, then stood under the pump and let cold
water sluice across his skin. Pressure built behind his rib cage, turning
painful as it grew.

He’d spent years trying to control his defective nature, hiding
his emotions and inclinations because according to the Telhada they were flawed.
Yet, he’d been acting human.

That was the first of many unforgivable deceptions. The
Telhada’s lies led him to murder his own kind in cold blood. The entire span of
his professional career, he’d been blind, performing without understanding his
role’s hidden purpose. The real agenda remained unclear—why had the Telhada
employed such monumental efforts to acquire subjects from Earth when a million
humans walked the streets of Kir Barsha?

As his skin grew wrinkled under the steady flow of water, his
mind cleared. Hal had failed to expose the lies of the Telhada and now that
One
had embraced the truth, it decided his
future. The citizens—humans—of Kir Barsha needed to learn the truth. His new
purpose, his path, must be to show them.

He could not go to Earth with Ashley.

* * *

Opening her eyes took more effort than it should. Ashley
focused on the blurry ceiling, squinting and widening her eyes until it
clarified. Her head throbbed like someone had whacked it with a bottle of
Absolut—or poured the contents down her throat in one shot. Or both,
repeatedly.

She moaned and swallowed, but couldn’t quite finish the motion.
Her dry throat hurt. When had she last eaten? Her stomach was empty enough to
make a supermodel jealous.

But as bad as her head hurt, at least she was alone in it.
Small yay. She sent out mental feelers but Sam was absolutely gone. Physically
and mentally. At last. She was alone. But definitely not lonely...