The Girl Who Chases the Wind

Chapter 21: Plan

Mari took me for a walk out in the nearby forest. I could tell she wanted to run, but she kept her pace down to something more manageable for me. It was already getting dark and the trees clung deep in shadow despite some hanging lights along the path.

She stretched her neck and said, “Feldon wouldn’t bother to dig up this forest. He’d consider it an insult.”

I kept my eyes on the glowing lamps and the stark shadows against the tree limbs. “What about hiding listening devices?”

With a smirk, Mari noted, “No way to tell. But I’d guess that lining the forest with them would be a bit much. Another form of violating it. What do you think he’s doing right now?”

I honestly had no idea. It was an odd question for Mari to ask, but I pondered it. If I were Feldon, I’d probably be checking in on things. But then one also had to consider he just learned that his long-lost daughter had been found. Although it sounded like he “knew” what would happen, the affirmation meant a lot to him.

I withheld a grimace. As a reporter, I often tried to keep a certain level of distance. To me. this was about the democratic integrity of the world. At the same time, it was my father’s obsession and I was a part of it. I was inescapably linked.

After pondering for a bit, I offered, “He’s probably thinking about me.”

Mari nodded slowly. “A fair guess. I’ve seen him when you haven’t. Everything he’s done lately has been about you. Even if it’s little comments or how he hasn’t been around me as often. He’s been excited to meet you.”

I had a sense of where Mari was leading me, if this was about her apparent plan and not something else. I waited and listened as she told me, “And he knows you’re Rachel. He’s spilled his biggest, darkest secrets to you. You see?”

I remembered his displeasure when I wasn’t happy with what he’d done, and I also recalled his expression when we parted. He wanted more. I told Mari as much. This time she smiled and noted, “Of course, we all want to see you more. Myself, I can’t even get past simple relief. You seem like you turned out well. Aside from….uh, never mind.”

I wasn’t sure if she was leading to another hippy comment or one about how, just strolling through the forest, I was beginning to pant. But I was pretty confident in what she was trying to suggest to me about Feldon. I asked, “Do you want me to be the distraction part of your plan, occupy his attention?”

This time, Mari turned around to stop and look at me. “Put bluntly. I mean, I only know of reporters in the most bitter of senses. Vultures trying to paint a token tragic tale out of our lives all those years ago. Nipping for political messages. But I assume you know what needs to be done to interview someone. After all, you’ve been persistent with me.”

I felt a pang of ambivalence about that. Still, she had a point. So, I asked, “What do you need me to do exactly?”

Mari stretched, though I was beginning to wonder if such movements were even necessary with a body like hers. “My plan has a few allies. You’ve probably met them: The worrier and the dreamer.”

She didn’t have to name names for me to understand she meant Kala and Edgar. I knew the latter was close to Mari, but I had no idea about the former. Mari explained, “Kala has always been a free spirit. Worries about everything without letting it be consuming. However, Kala has always worried about a world manipulated by Feldon since…she knew enough to know what it meant.”

A cool breeze traced down from the hills. I almost thought I detected the scent of rain from far off. “So…why haven’t you done anything before?”

“Who says we haven’t?” Mari leaned against a tree and then elaborated, “Kala actually has done a little bit on her own. There are limitations on the system put in there because Kala anticipated abuse. Even Feldon doesn’t know what his strings in the brains of the influential and powerful can fully do.”

I immediately looked around to make sure no one was listening. Not as though it mattered. We kept walking into the forest until we came to a bench carved from a fallen tree. It looked worn and bug-eaten in places, but it provided a nice place for both of us to sit. This was a much bigger thing for me than it seemed to be for Mari.

We sat together silently. I shut my eyes for a time, blackening the already-dark forest. I didn’t mind the abyss. It let me rest with the mental deluge. I also didn’t mind when Mari decided to lean against me with her small but strong body.

I couldn’t hear her breath, nor could I feel a heartbeat or much of a warm presence against me. At the same time, I felt comforted to have her there. I couldn’t imagine what it might be like to be her and I never for a moment wanted to learn what it was like through another of Feldon’s experiments.

Bugs zipped around the deep curtain of the forest, twinkling to life in the glow of the lamps along the path. Mari’s face hung in stark shadow against me as she said, “I could die here.”

I shifted with a spike of alarm as she wore the faintest of smiles and amended, “I’m not going to. Well, I don’t intend to. Not tonight.” Settling with relief, I brushed at her mossy hair as she pressed into me. Not enough to hurt, but I felt an urgency with her contact.

We’d have been quite a pair if this was a normal park in a normal city. A suited, androgynous fellow and a slim, youthful girl with anime hair. Would anyone have guessed what we were to one another?

I held my grandfather as she told me softly, “Thank you for today. No matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what happens beyond, I’m so thankful I had today. I know I wasn’t too keen on the whole thing, especially those clothes. But it almost felt like a little return to the good days gone by.”

Resting my hand on her shoulder, I told her, “All the good days don’t have to be in the past.” I could feel her faintly nodding with that. “I know. I just wish you could’ve known all your sisters. I wish you all could’ve grown up together. And maybe Feldon would’ve been different. I don’t know.”

Considering that he was already trying to craft me into a flawless little girl before I even had a name, I doubted that but I held my tongue. Mari tugged on the side of my suit. Since she was dressed in her athletic clothes from earlier rather than the ones we bought, I asked her what happened to them.

Quietly, she explained that the nurses had put them away for her, noting, “They said they were nice. I still don’t know how I feel. They’re nice, but they’re clothes for Aura. I don’t mind you calling me a girl or cute because in my head I’m taking it as a compliment of her and what face of hers I can save. But really and truly, I’m not a girl. And neither are you.” Mari peered ahead at some featureless patch of the forest dense and dark.

It was my turn to give a little smile as I added, “True…although we all know Lily is a girl though.”

Mari mirrored my expression. “Absolutely. You need to get to know her better. Although I don’t even know how well I know her. I just know I love her so much that I don’t have words for it anymore. Even if it’s just sitting together…”

I thought about the two of us as we were and offered simply, “Sitting together can be the best.” And that was about all we did. I could’ve said more about what she brought up about gender and how neither of us were girls. That kind of thing still floated about in my head. I’d wrestled with it for so long that I didn’t even know for sure. I just knew I was me and I was happy to be beside Mari/Greenie/Michael...the Wind.

Fittingly, a little breeze kicked up with that thought and curled around us on that crude bench. It wasn’t long before Greenie slipped away from me and stood up. She turned with a calm, quiet expression and said, “You need some rest. Tomorrow will be challenging.”

Before we parted, she led me back to the cabin and made a crude list of everything I needed to do for my part of the plan. I read the entire thing several times to memorize it before she destroyed it.

The walk back to the dorms was lonely but simple with the glow of the clinic like a lighthouse on the shore. I approached my room with a frown. I gazed at the ground surrounding it and stepped lightly even though it didn’t matter.

Once inside, I stood around with my eyes watching the floor. The tape hadn't been disturbed. My inspection last night didn’t turn up any peepholes and I really had no reason to suspect there would be anything in here. But still, with all of Feldon’s secrets and the fact I knew there were facilities and corridors running right under my feet, I felt prickly just from standing. It reminded me of how little privacy I had at home. No door was allowed to be shut, no matter what I was doing. I was so happy to be away from there. This felt even worse.

I took a breath. Then, the anxiety began to lessen. Yes, he was watching. Yes, here I was, laid bare. But I had choices. Immediately, I went to my big bag. The white cards I sometimes used for note-keeping when I was feeling particularly retro sat at the bottom.

With a pen, I began marking the same message on each.

WE NEED TO TALK in big, blocky letters. I placed a few on the floor, some on the walls, and a number in the window. I was shouting to Feldon through the darkness. After that, I relaxed, far more than I usually did on assignment. I even took a long shower and walked around the dorm with just the biggest towel around me I could find as I dried my hair. I kept the blinds closed.

It was unnerving to sit so exposed. Not as though I was likely to be any more private in the bathroom. As I stood up, I let the towel fall to the ground. My legs wobbled. If Feldon was out there, then I guess I wanted him to see. It was his handiwork exposed. I wondered what the contours of my body would’ve been without what he did to me.

Say he’d decided he wanted a son and pushed the mosaic in that direction instead. I could imagine the sharper lines around my jaw. Vestigial hairs that didn’t bloom on my face would explode in dense, rich fields. I would surely be taller. Narrower, manly hips. Nicer thighs. A pretty boy nudged into masculine territory. I wondered how it would feel when I was aroused. When I very rarely had random dreams where I was a man, all the details felt wrong, like my brain was trying to convince myself that I’d changed but the sensations of the waking world were cutting through like sharp splinters.

I dressed in clothes I usually wore for comfort when I knew I wouldn’t be seen. They were stiff from their usual hiding spot under everything else. In bed and with the lights out, I watched the ceiling. I felt clammy across my neck despite the long shower. I shifted more than usual. My gut gurgled in senseless protest. It used to feel desperately achy when I first started being Logan Harper professionally. I felt so afraid, but it also felt so right with every firm, echoing step I took with that face. I threw up more than once on assignment.

With careful, long breaths, I didn’t feel the pain as much. I didn’t feel the anxiety for what tomorrow might bring. I was afraid, but a little flame of feeling inside told me it was the right thing to do. Feldon had no right to subvert the will of others, no matter who they were or what they’d done.