Subjectivity V2: Chapter 1

Everything is white.

The floor, walls, ceiling, furniture and even the clothes upon their backs are white. The colour is everywhere and yet somehow means nothing to him. For what good could a colour do for this aberration? What merciful god would curse a defective product with the knowledge that his world is stale, lifeless, and devoid of what was once considered necessary for life.

Instead, he sits, though it is an uncomfortable affair. The couch below him is too large; his feet dangle awkwardly off the edge and without their support, he perpetually slides downward. However the mistake of a boy evermore adjusts himself, determined to not look in any way like the thing he has been classified as.

Before him, upon the blank wall, was a television screen which displayed a documentary the child is particularly fond of: it details the dire ramifications of the Earth’s rotation ceasing its tireless movement. He doesn’t find joy in the idea of vast swaths of the world becoming uninhabitable: that situation would only spell disaster for him and the two people who mattered to him. Instead, he finds it fascinating how the world, such a great and giant thing, can be ruined by the mere stopping of its spin. ‘How does it work?’ he questions silently, not wishing to speak unless absolutely necessary.

A disturbance sounds to his left, and his eyes slowly move toward its source. A mirror, roughly six feet wide by eight feet tall, is recessed into the wall. The other children think it to be just an aesthetic choice, or perhaps a place they can sit when other more comfortable options are chosen, but the disappointment of a specimen knows that it’s a one-way mirror. ‘Why do the Keepers like watching us?’ the boy wonders, but again does not voice his concern, for if the other children were to know what he knows, they’d merely find a new way to watch them.

The aberration slides off the couch, forsaking the beloved entertainment for a bit of childish espionage. The others may think him to be a dullard, devoid of what people call a soul, but he feels a giddy sensation tingle at the back of his mind when he defies them. Unlike his friend, however, he must be careful: too much defiance will see his short life of ten years be ended in the name of security. He walks to the mirror, pretending to look at himself, when in reality he’s straining to listen for the voices on the other side.

Sparing a glance to himself, the disappointment remarks on his unordinary features: short blond hair is neatly parted above the temple and glimmers with a sort of pure sheen not often seen anymore. His facial features are what he’s heard be described as pointed. His cheekbones are high and his chin pointed, while his mouth almost always remains a neutral line. However his eyes are truly remarkable, for the glittering cerulean in their depths twinkles with an intelligence unknown to his peers. Or at least, that is what Mother has told him.

She often likes to praise him.

Irritation nags at his mind as he finds his eavesdropping interrupted time and time again by the distant rowdiness of the children behind him. In the reflection of the mirror, he can see the others playing on computer consoles, puzzles and games. Some do so together, while others keep to themselves, yet they are not questioned like he is: their sentience is not up for debate simply because they smile and laugh.

The boy ignores the envy he feels, and returns to the task he has made for himself, all-the-while running a hand over his lower stomach, his fingertips retracting quickly at the sharp pain felt in the row of stitches he finds there. “… Abnormal behaviour,” is the first term he hears, and the boy quite quickly realises he’s being talked about. Following this, another voice, this one feminine, speaks more loudly, as though so that he could be a more active listener.

“His IQ is above all the other children, which counts for something in my books.” The room falls quiet, for the woman’s voice he knew so well was one that had to be heeded. Her word was law here, and so he felt safe that he would live another day. As he steps away from the mirror, he hears her once more, this time with a twinge of pain in her uncharacteristically authoritative voice: “Why can’t we just close this file already? He’s clearly never been Class 10.”

He can hear other voices contesting the point, but he won’t pay them any heed. ‘Why would I listen to them, when I know what they will say? They will call me a Nobody and keep the case open until Mother agrees to recycle me.’ Passing by a few other children who give him wary looks, he makes his way toward the window that spanned the entire far wall. The afternoon sun shone brightly in, but in the fiercely air conditioned room, it simply felt cold and lifeless.

Footsteps sound behind him, but he ignores them too; he wanted to think, but found the process muddled. Was he hurt from what the Keepers wanted to do to him? It was hard to say, he understands he has feelings, but actively feeling them is very difficult. It’s as though there’s a glass wall between his mind and his heart, cruelly tempting his body to think it could be whole. “Roe, want to play the new synapse game with us?” A girl asks from behind him.

The boy suddenly remembers: he has a name. Nobody but the nice children use it, and even then they’re normally discouraged by their unfriendly compatriots to not honour him with the kindness of addressing him in a respectful manner. The boy, revealed as Roe, turns, his azure gaze settling on the girl no older than he now before him.

Her skin is a dark, healthy brown, and he can tell she was made to look like she’s from India, or possibly Pakistan. She’s nervous, and he can tell, but it’s not of him. A few other children; one Asian boy looking to be his senior by a year or two, and two Caucasian girls looking to be of a similar age, are watching her closely. ‘She’s the weak link,’ the defective product realises. If he were to accept her offer, she would be held accountable for his action, or more likely inaction.

Roe shakes his head twice, “Thank you, but I will only get you in trouble.” His voice is emotionless and robotic. At one point, as a very young boy, he shouted and screamed against those who hurt and oppressed him, but now it seems he can get slightly more done with a voice that sounds more like the thing they wish him to be, and less like what he once was. The girl looks like she’s going to protest, but he motions subtly with his hand to her friends who are now staring her down. She looks back to him, and offers him a small smile before departing.

“Thank you,” he says once more, though she doesn’t seem to understand why. Given a pass from social alienation, the girl returns to her friends, fiddling with her wavy black hair as she retreats from him. He turns again, looking over the complex that housed them. ‘Thank you for smiling at me,’ the boy admits to himself weakly, drawing in a steadying breath.

Before him, a small city of tightly packed skyscrapers juts out all around him, though their building is one of the farthest north and has an unobstructed view of the ocean. It was these small, unintentional mercies that made his life better, Roe found. It was easy to get lost in the sadness in the world and of his existence, but no Keeper, no child, could take the sun and the ocean away from him. “NELO,” he whispered to himself, as though the acronym for the establishment he had lived in since his creation was profane. To some it was, he heard, but the rigors of those who would condemn his existence felt so terribly far away, something that would never rear its head in his life.

The New Evolutionary Leap Organisation once had created their complex in America, but, as Mother told him, very bad people had destroyed it. Many lives had been lost, but the world rallied behind them and donations poured in. Thus they built this complex, which was sometimes called NELO 2, or officially NELO Complex Two.

It was here Roe would live or die, merely strummed along at the whims of men he had only seen and never spoken to. Their adversary, Mother, battled for him, but both the boy and the matron of his kind knew better: it was clearly only a matter of time until they gained the upper hand and were successful in getting rid of him. ‘I wish I understood,’ he complained, the ignorance of his situation only serving to embitter him.

The boy discerns that he will likely go to death calm, but saddened by the reality that he was powerless to stop it. Power was for those who had earned it, he had been told, but when had such cruel men and women like the Keepers earned the power to dictate whether defective product lived or died? Roe did not wish to join the bins of lifeless, deformed bodies. He was normal: he looked normal, he even sounded relatively normal, so what was his crime?

Breathing out a breath he had not realised he held, Roe continued to watch the wave lap lazily against the distant shore, longing for the freedom it so fervently promised.

~*~

The dull roar of the engines waved in and out as the young man tries to doze in his seat. His mouth is dry and tastes of fatigue and cheap airplane snacks, which left a tacky substance on his teeth. He is careful not to allow his spine to relax and thus fall onto the elderly woman seated next to him, but in doing so has destroyed any chance of a lasting sleep. Sleep can be achieved only when you relax, and this passenger feels no relaxation.

His eyelids flutter open and bleary hazel eyes stare out at the grey and blue back of the chair in front of him. ‘It’s the safest form of travel,’ he tells himself, still finding his mind to be uncomfortably aware of every action his body took. Every breath could feel restricted if he thought of it, and through all the minor panic attacks he had up until this point during the flight, he had been able to talk himself down from the brink of a catatonic.

A small screen is embedded in the headset of the chair before him, and the youth raises a stiff hand and touches the screen and revives it from its own technological slumber, though immediately squints at the brightness. The screen displayed a small plane superimposed on a map of the Pacific Ocean, though it displayed mostly the west coast of North America and the islands and atolls of the vast watery expanse. His plane appeared to be two thirds to its largely unknown destination in the western reaches of the Pacific.

‘Soon,’ he thinks to himself, somewhat soothing his frayed nerves. He opens a menu on the display and is immediately greeted with his flight information: ‘Tharros, Stephan, Seat 34 B, Economy’ is listed in the top left corner of the screen while options for TV, music, and movies are offered. Deciding to pick the second option, he procures a set of earbuds from his jacket pocket before drawing the nylon closer to his body. The plane is cold and it did little to soothe someone accustomed to the otherwise temperate weather California offers.

A strong bass thumps noisily in his ears before a singer joins in with a macabre message of love lost and poor life decisions. Deciding to merely bear the otherwise subpar music, Stephan leans back in his seat and lets his eyes unfocus on the screen, wishing the tiny plane on the screen to move faster and end his journey.

Minutes pass as one song is replaced by another and the nervous man finds himself relaxing, and slowly falling back into the doze he had been lulled into earlier. However a small ‘ping’ alerts him to a message. Leaning forward, he taps the envelope icon, and reveals a message. Reading it to himself, he cannot help but smile sadly, his heart suddenly aching as he finds himself longing for the home he had abandoned in hopes of an education and a better future.

‘Steph I hope you read this before your flight lands: your father and I love you dearly and hope you have a great time at your new school. Don’t forget to visit lots! We miss you already.’ Below the loving message was her name, Janine and the time stamp of a few hours prior. The same ache in his heart translates into a small lump in his throat and Stephan’s eyes abruptly feel moist. His sister always tells him that he’s a crybaby, but he’s never seen that as a bad thing.

Drafting a response, the student finds himself unsure of what to say: he loves his parents dearly, but is unsure what to say without depressing them further. ‘I didn’t give much thought to how they’d feel once I was gone,’ he admits to himself with a measure of shame. Ever since he had decided to leave home for university, Stephan had known his parents would miss him, but seeing his otherwise emotionally stifled parents admit they did was something else. ‘I’ll see you guys sooner than you think. Before you know it you’ll be kicking me out!’ His response does not really acknowledge their feelings, but anything else would feel too awkward and out of place.

Closing the messenger, he leans back once more, eyeing the tan skin of his left hand. A small scar drew over his middle knuckle and down the length of his hand before fading away at his wrist. ‘I hope he’s alive,’ he wondered to himself, the unhappy memory of the orphan Subject whom he had befriended as a child coming to his mind. The child’s eyes, bloodshot and tired, had always reminded Stephan of a trapped animal that had given up on trying to escape. Yet that Subject and so many more were not trapped by a physical cage, but a cage of fear and distrust. People blame them for everything from unemployment to aftershocks of the Barren, he reminded himself.

His friend has simply been another casualty in the war on the artificially made person. Looking away from the painful reminder, he returned his gaze to the small marker indicated by a ‘B.’ ‘They’re made there, on that tiny island. And I’m going there,’ Stephan reminded himself, still astonished he had been able to afford going to the Neo-Palmyra University. In truth it is little more than an extended research facility for the NELO complex, but it is a truly international school – it offers a change from the tedium of his life in exchange for exotic ideas and people.

As though the radio station he listened to could read his mind, Stephan jumps at the sound of a familiar voice. She is the face of NELO, the woman tabloids call the Mother of Subjects. “The New Evolutionary

Leap Organisation is here to help you with your education. Students are encouraged to visit our website and apply for grants. Who knows, maybe we could see you at work?” The woman’s voice was mirthful and sweet in his earbuds, and Stephan could not help but smile at her words. “Visit us today nelo.un.org for more information.”

Stephan always found it strange that the face of NELO would do so much of the advertising, but chalked it up to the fact that she was a kind face on a strange organisation in a truly unique business. As he becomes bored with the music at hand, he changes from music to the TV stations, and picks the home renovation channel. Joining a program mid-broadcast, the aberrant chatter of how to install a smart home system and why the right one can make all the difference.

An hour passes as Stephan is lulled into a bored peace as he watches the renovation crew wax on about what they’re doing, but his peace is abruptly shattered as the plane abruptly falls a few feet before snapping back up. The turbulence sends a few personal goods rolling down the aisle, though a few attentive good Samaritans save the day by stopping them with their feet. “Folks this is the captain speaking: we’re just hitting a zone of high pressure. Stay seated and buckle your seatbelts, we should be out of this in a few minutes.”

Immediately Stephan’s heart begins to pound heavily in his chest. His hands feel cold and numb as he grips the armrests. Keeping his breathing calm, he does his best to stay equally composed, but his ever active mind betrays his efforts: ‘This is always how it begins,’ ‘your parents will be miserable if you die!’ ‘You’ll have died doing nothing with your life,’ the questions beleaguer him mercilessly and he can feel his breath abruptly shorten as the plane is jostled to one side. “Please god,” he whispers to himself as he leans forward, his hazel gaze wide.

The woman seated next to him is still focused on the show playing before her, and he curses at her silently, hating her for not feeling what he felt. “Why me?!” He hisses miserably, leaning back into his seat as the feeling of hopelessness engulfs him. ‘Why am I so pathetic?’ The question is left unanswered and Stephan can only feel worse about himself. ‘So fucking weak,’ one part of his mind snaps at him. By no means is Stephan religious, but he finds himself whispering endlessly for god to save him as the plane is rocked to and fro over the Pacific Ocean.

The turbulence continues for a few minutes, but by the time that the seatbelt sign has finally turned off, Stephan is on his feet and hurrying to the washroom, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, one clutching at an inhaler tightly while the other slips against itself with cold sweat. His shoes pound noisily on the hollow floor and he feels the disapproving stares of those he’s annoyed with his noisy footwear, though he cannot seem to care for that as he normally might. Reaching a break in the endless rows of seats, he enters a washroom smaller than most closets. About a foot of floorspace is all he is given to stand in: before him is the toilet, set against the rounded edge of the plane, and to his left a small sink the size of a mixing bowl.

Fumbling with his belt, the young man unfastens his trousers and takes a seat, relieving himself of the physical manifestation of his stress. His stomach roils in displeasure as he bears down with his machinations, the whole of his digestive system burning and threatening to be thrown into reverse should he not get a hold of his emotions. “I can do this,” he says to himself, trying and failing to silence his destructive thoughts. Minutes pass as he sits there, elbows propped up on his bare knees. ‘You look pathetic,’ an inner voice tells him, and he can only lower his head in recognition of the fact. Running his cold hands through his wavy brown hair.

His body eventually does settle enough for him to be able to tidy up and instead stand before the mirror. His smooth face has small pink marks from where his knuckles had rested against his prominent cheekbones, marring otherwise tanned skin. Hazel eyes are tired and unhappy while his usually mess hair is in some places standing awkwardly on end. It’s then that he notices his abruptly shortened breathing. Panic resumes anew as he suddenly focuses all his attention on his breathing, incapable of distracting himself.

Breathing in through his mouth, Stephan finds he is able to draw a full breath, but his nose feels inflamed and useless. His hand dives into his pocket once more and procures the yellow inhaler. Sticking the worn plastic mouthpiece between his lips, he depresses the vial of gas and inhales sharply. A strange feeling of nervous excitement passes through his lungs as the medicine contacts his insides, bolstering his breathing.

“I can do this,” He repeats himself once more as he unlocks the washroom door. Stepping out, he finds a middle aged man staring at him disapprovingly. Offering the man no kindness but instead an embarrassed aversion of his gaze, he finds a line of three people behind the stranger, evidently all having been waiting for him to vacate the washroom. Stephan walks slowly back to his seat, feeling both defeated and pathetic.

~*~

With freezing winds snapping around her, Sonya Volkov could barely see through her squinted eyes, let alone spot her prey. Before her stretched craggy expanses interspaced with sickly forests, all of which was covered in a few inches of snow. Verdant eyes look over the blindingly bright expanse, searching for any signs of life. “Shit,” she mumbles to herself, angry she had lost her prey. Her boots crunch noisily through the otherwise untrammelled lands that comprised the frigid highlands, and she descends off a gentle escarpment and toward one of the many thickets comprised of thin trees and thorny bramble.

Minutes passed as she treads through the desolate land, her face becoming number as she went. The small metal bud that was stuck in her ear abruptly sounded a gentle ‘click’ before a familiar voice sounded: “Sonya?” The voice questioned, “It’s getting late. I’ve made a bit of money at the bazaar. If you can’t find any game, just come home.” The voice fell silent after that, awaiting her response.

“Ivan,” she spoke aloud, the tiny device easily picking up her voice in the wind, “I’m tracking a buck deer.” Her voice came off coolly, and even after twenty three years of life, eighteen of which she had spoken English, even she could hear the accents in their voices. “I’ll be home in a bit,” with that said, the line dies without a word from Ivan. Regardless of her disinterest in his response, she can hear Ivan giving some sort of snide response.

Ahead, the large beast perked its head up, its sensitive ears twitching in the chilly wind. Sonya knew the deer had heard her, but not well enough to be alarmed. Many people consider deer to be fast and dangerous, but to her they were lumbering fools brought easily down. Remaining still where she crouched, worried the crunching snow would give her away.

The buck deer eases down once more, searching for what little sustenance it could on the barren ground. The sound of hard snow being compressed was alive again, but not due to Sonya; the buck deer had moved away from her, evidently having found more grass or other food it found appealing. Seeing her opportunity, a small smirk pulled at her lips as she thought to herself ‘Well we’ll be eating tonight…’

Wasting no more time, Sonya bursts from her hiding spot and pulled from the waist of her pants what appeared to be a handgun. Aiming it at the now alarmed beast, she depresses the trigger, sending out two small prongs which embed themselves in the flesh of the deer.

A moment passes as the great beast stands still, macabrely majestic, before a small trickle of blood escapes its nostril and it collapsed down, killed instantly. “Ivan,” she spoke aloud, “I’ve got it. I’ll be home soon,” and with that said, she silenced the device in her ear and pulled back her auburn hair. “Living like a savage… Where will it end?”

A hand moves toward her waist and depressed a small button on her belt. The earpiece she wore, once used as a means of communication between she and her brother now sounded the crackling tones of the radio. A lively song played, bass booming and with high pitched, tinny accents, giving a very percussive and dramatic feeling as she prepared to haul the buck deer she had slain, however it ended as quickly as it had begun – endemic of the time she lived in, where instant gratification has shortened songs to mere minute blips of noise.

“Hello, my friends,” a familiar, calm voice chimes: “President Ehrhardt and I are in talks with the Alliance of Asiatic States for them becoming a permanent and official member of the Pacific Union.” It is the voice of Doran Laevan, Prime Minister of the Pacific Union.

Laevan continued to yammer on as Sonya continued her work, but she pauses as he changes topics: “Your Union Government is here for you, and we understand that, with the increase in terroristic activities relating to Subjects, there is a greater need for inquiry into the New Evolutionary Leap Organisation and its compound on Neo-Palmyra.” Sonya’s auburn brows knit together in concentration as she continues to listen to the Prime Minister: “The Union Government will be therefore conducting an official inquiry into NELO and will deliver a fully public report in one year’s time.”

She snorted derisively at the warped logic of the Prime Minister continues, and from her pocket procures a folded switchblade. Spinning it in her hand, she flips out the blade, roughly three inches long and an inch wide at its greatest girth, and examines it. The edge was nicked at the hilt – the remnants of a furious battle she had with a coked up drug fiend when she and Ivan had visited the city of Murmansk, economic capital of the Murmansk Oblast. She couldn’t recall how the man did it, but a small scar on her side reminded her of when her knife was all that stopped her kidney from having an open air debut.

It was what passed for a skinning knife: the hide of the animal was patchy, thinly furred, and thus was of little use as clothing or tradable goods, but Ivan insisted upon making some sort of blanket out of it. “It may be a terrible blanket to us, and it’s easy to forget, but there are people worse off in this dump that could use it,” his words had always held a wisdom beyond his, and her own, years. Gently pushing the knife into the hide of the slain beast, she began the arduous process of skinning it in preparation for the flesh’s transport.

Her work continued with the predictable, if somewhat displeasuring sound of skin being cut off. It was a repetitive and, even for its unpleasant audio, soothing activity. It was the peace she valued, being out in what remained of the Russian nature. The sound of distant, solitary birds, of the wind rustling bare, sickly trees and of the crack of shrubbery.

She stopped her machinations and looked up: that snap of a twig was not natural. Perhaps Ivan had followed her? “Not likely, he couldn’t get out here on his own,” she mused, moving her grey eyes over the landscape. “Who’s there?” She spoke in thickly accented English, suspecting anyone here would know the language before the fading dialect that was Russian. She rose to her full height, the knife held firmly in her right hand, and turned to assess the landscape.

Behind her, a young girl, no more than ten years old, stood in the knee deep snow embankment. She wore oversized synthetic fur boots, stained beige trousers and a surprisingly new looking pink jacket. Her brown hair was cropped just above her neck and she looked strangely healthy, as well as distinctly not Slavic in any sense. “Little girl,” Sonya addressed her cautiously, her nerves not relaxing at the sight of a child in the middle of nowhere, “Why are you here?”

The girl smiled sweetly at Sonya, who still held the knife. She lifted one skinny leg and plopped it down into the snow before herself, slowly waddling toward the huntress in the deep snow. “Because,” she began, her English immaculate and of North American descent. The auburn haired woman stiffened as the girl placed a hand over the blade of her knife with an eerie delicate touch.

“Careful, girl, you don’t –“ Sonya was cut off as the small child drew her hand across the blade, biting into her soft flesh and allowing a small stream of crimson fluid drip off the knife and into the snow below, staining it.

“Because you are a sinner, silly.” The girl said, her dull green eyes looking unfocused and distant at such a close range. However, before Sonya could reply, she felt a sharp stabbing pain as a needle slid into her back and the rush of a hot sensation around the wound appear. Her body felt heavy, she felt her bladder give way, and her tongue go numb. Collapsing to the ground, all she could see was the drip of blood into the once undisturbed snow.

All was black as Sonya fell unconscious.