The Girl Who Chases the Wind

Chapter 23: The Hollow Men

Lily leaned towards her with her eyes shut and an easy smile on her face. I reached across the table, and she clutched my hands. I held back tears and then felt a small, thick lump passed to me in her grasp. Mari wore a careful poker face and scratched at her ear with a wink at me as she leaned against Lily.

Cupping my hand, I brought it up to my ear as Mari gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. After a moment of turning, the lump passed easily into my ear like a hearing aid, completely hidden from view. It should’ve blocked my hearing in that ear, but it was like it was hollow through the center. With no idea what to do next, I just listened.

In that ear, like a soft whisper, I heard Ada say, “If you can hear me, cough twice.” I followed her directions, and she continued, “Edgar is here too. This is all courtesy of Kala. Greenie and Lily can both hear me too. Kala is routing through the slight crystalline in your nerves to make this possible.” That unsettled me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Ada continued to explain, “It’s cruder with you because you have less to work with but, if you think about saying a word, we should be able to communicate. No promises.”

“Can you hear me?” I didn’t say it aloud. I did think about the motion of saying that and the sound I expected it to make when spoken. In my head, it was a little more boyish and masculine than when it reverberated through my skull.

Ada’s answer came with a long pause. “Barely but it’s a connection. I’ll be with you at least. It’s almost go time.”

I tried something a little tougher and asked, “Didn’t Feldon save you? Why do this?”

Another long pause. Ada chuckled and her voice shifted to Edgar’s. “I’ve had that chat so often with Greenie in our little times together. I fear more for the kids in this place. Without Feldon, I have no idea what will become of the clinic for those most in need. There’s no easy way through this. It’s up to Feldon to concede. But that’s later. For now, you’re up first.”

I asked her what to do and she passed along a quick flurry of directions. With a breath, I kept it all in mind and stood up from the table. I told Lily and Mari, the nerves returning at their worst, “It was nice having breakfast with you both, but I have something I need to do.” They just gave me little nods as I turned and made my way to the nearest door. The cafeteria was beginning to swell with staff as I left.

I knew the way without needing to think about it. Feldon’s door was wide open and I could see the edge of him through it. His desk was cleared off, which unnerved me more than a little. Ada told me, “I’ll be going silent unless it’s something important. Sorry to leave you on your own, but we know you can do it.”

And then there were no more voices in my ear to cover up my heartbeat. I took a breath, brushed my clothes once, and stepped into his office.

Feldon didn’t look over as I entered. I folded my arms and shook my head as I told him, “Way to scare the shit out of me when I woke up.” I held up the crumpled paper with my inquiry and his answer from my room.

Folding his hands on the table, Feldon cleared his throat and answered with his eyes finally resting on me, “If it makes you feel any better, I did not enter your room. I just opened up a hidden pneumatic tube we use for delivery. I assume you left all those there to see if I was watching.”

I stressed the point, “And you were. Did you watch me the whole night?”

He leaned his head towards the window on the other side of the room. “Not the whole night. But I checked in on you. I wanted to make sure you were alright. You looked like you were having a nightmare.”

I took a breath. “I was. A bad one.” Feldon averted his eyes with a nod, before answering, “Best to let those go. I have plenty of bad dreams full of silent gunfire, bursts of blood, and coldness.”

His words made me flinch. I bowed my head as he tapped on the table and offered, “So, you wanted to talk?”

I lifted my head and stared him down. “It was a lot to take in yesterday. I’m thankful for what you told me. And I’ve had time to think about it…”

I held onto my words. Feldon remained steady in his seat, eager but still willing to wait me out. I continued, “I want you to give it up. Junk this mind-control machine of yours. Do good for the world as a doctor, not a manipulator.”

Feldon sighed into his hands, as he muttered, “I am a doctor, always. And the job of a doctor is not as easy as you might imagine from what I’ve shown you. Sure, sometimes it’s simply patting kids on the back and telling them everything is going to be alright. But you also need to make difficult choices for what will do the most good.”

Shaking my head slowly, I told him, “They’re not your choices to make. Everyone has to make their own choices. Some will be shitty choices, but they have the right to that. If they break the law, then I can punish them with my words and the system can deal with them.”

He clutched the table tightly and asked me, “How many corrupt and destructive people have been justly punished…Men and women who have made the world worse from their existence? Far too few. Why? You talk about the system…They are the system, they make the system and its rules. Only idealists can ever imagine that system truly punishing the right people.”

I didn’t waver from his words. “How do you know your way has done good? The world is still a ball of chaotic climate, suffering, and war.”

Here, Feldon relaxed. He was prepared for this question, as he informed me, “Not every treatment is swift or immediately obvious in its effects. Many key individuals have passed through these doors but not everyone can make it here. In the future, I hope to seed a lot of the effects into Memetic Crystalline-based products used by people all over the world, this will provide a much larger usable sample size.”

I gripped my chair and shook my head. “Are you hearing what you’re saying and what it means? Control of everyone in the world, removal of free will. You want to make us all like perfect little synthetics, only thinking and feeling and doing what you want!”

With a sigh of exasperation, Feldon waved his hand. “You’re overreacting. I’m saying nothing of the sort. What I’m saying and you are not hearing is that I am trying to root out the cancers of this world and make those bad cells into ones which benefit the whole. Unfortunately, I must act on the whole, as doctors had to when you were young, to best achieve this end.”

He was acting more restrained than last evening. I wanted to get more traction and more feeling, but I reminded myself I was just a distraction. It was too much to hope that I could find some combination of words that might reach him and change his mind.

Still, I pressed. “You’re behaving like a cancer. You want to spread to everywhere and everything and overwrite what’s there. Sure, there are plenty of bad things and people in the world, but you’re worse.”

Feldon barely resisted a flash of anger. He pushed hard against his table. “I have saved lives! I’ve swayed despots. I’ve convinced killers to embrace life. I’ve nudged the greedy from avarice to charity….And the man responsible for the civil war which shattered our family and broke the peaceful country we once loved…has chosen to renounce his past and has lived...a long and healthy life. A life your sisters and mother deserved far more. But he lives….he lives…” Feldon ground his teeth together and held back any further words.

I noted the tired shadows around Feldon’s eyes as he bowed his head. He didn’t look like he’d gotten any sleep. Actually, I’d never seen him sleep. I relaxed my gaze, but not too much, as I clutched the shoulders of my chair and pushed myself to my feet.

“What you’ve done with the power to control others doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have no right to that power in the first place. No one does.”

Bending his head up, Feldon muttered, “In an ideal world. But we don’t live in that. If it wasn’t me, it could be someone with far worse intentions. Too many Memetic Crystalline product clients have wondered whether what I do would be possible. Fortunately, I’ve kept enough secrets from them. If not for me….I dare not imagine what would follow.”

I didn’t relish the possibility either, but I kept countering the notion that such a thing had to exist.

Feldon kept his same tone as he continued, “But it does exist. Memetic Crystalline and the Cellular types made from it have saved and improved so many lives. Part of me wishes I’d never found this method of using Memetic Crystalline but the rest of me is glad the secret is protected.”

Shaking my head, I begged, “What about changing Memetic Crystalline so it can’t be manipulated in this way?”

While Feldon didn’t immediately scoff at the possibility, he told me with certainty, “Memetic Crystalline is all about plasticity and the ability to manipulate that quality. You remove what makes it dangerous, you also remove what makes it special.”

I pressed that there had to be another way. I even carefully invoked Kala, which brought Feldon to tell me it was Kala who first hypothesized this was something to be worried about with Memetic Crystalline. No words came in through my earpiece until Feldon admitted, with a sigh, “I’m afraid that’s just how things are.”

The silence after his words was broken by Ada telling me, “Follow my directions when I speak again.”

I swallowed despite a dry mouth and a churning stomach. Feldon looked calm but still tired as he asked, “So, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

I could tell where he was leading me, but I was only listening with half my thoughts. I cobbled together, “No. But there’s a lot of things I should talk about. And I’m trying to work through all of them in my head at once.”

The lecturer feeling to Feldon receded and the face he showed before the children of the clinic began to poke through again as he told me, “You don’t have to keep it all alone. Tell me.”

I led my eyes to wander around the room in mimicry of being lost in thought. I offered, “Family. It’s about family, as you said. All about family. I’m not sure what family means to me right now. I have a family which raised me with decent intentions but not the kindest nature.” I chewed on my lip.

Feldon narrowed his eyes with a feeling which passed over contempt and jealousy without touching upon them. I continued, “Now, since yesterday, I know I’ve always had another family which is no less a part of me. A family that shaped me as well. And I’m not sure what my future is with either family.”

With a sigh, Feldon went as slack as I’d seen him. He nodded slowly. “I know it’s complicated, especially right now. It’s so very difficult for me to see you as anything but smiling little Rachel trying out her first words. But….that was so very long ago. Still, no matter what name you take for yourself, no matter what you feel or think…please know that I will always love you as…my child.”

They were the kind of words I heard far too rarely or not at all from my other parents. I took a breath and leaned back in my chair. I wasn’t ready for anything more than, “Thank you.” He nodded in return with a relaxed gaze.

Then, Ada’s voice said, “It begins.”

A heartbeat later, every alarm in the clinic blared in sync.